Unlawful Appropriation
by aphelion-orion
Summary: Most people who wanted to rule a country had to go to ridiculous lengths to get it, but it figured Ky would get one handed to him in the mail. Aka The story of how Ky became a pretty princess, and everything that followed after. -Overture, Sol/Ky, Sin-
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Unlawful Appropriation  
**Fandom:** Guilty Gear Overture [AU]  
**Pairing/Characters:** Sol/Ky, Sin  
**Part:** 1/3  
**Rating:** PG-15  
**Warning:** AU, humor  
**Disclaimer:** If I owned Overture, the entire thing would've made a bit more sense. XD  
**Notes:** I am cheerfully ignoring anything in Overture that doesn't make sense for the purposes of this story. Yeah, that's a lot, I know. I've also not taken into account anything Ishiwatari might have come up with before his first cup of coffee to say in an interview. That rarely helps, anyway. XD I owe a lot to hours of fun conversation with **twigcollins**. And last but not least, credit for the original instigation of this particular AU goes to **rallamajoop**. I have tried to keep the similarities to a minimum, so please forgive me if something does show.

-

**Unlawful Appropriation**  
_**Part I**_

-

._**  
**_

There were a few things you generally did not expect to find in the mail.

The first was your own epitaph, accompanied by a polite and apologetic letter by the secretary of the PR department, asking if you would like any changes made, and to please send those immediately because it wasn't certain when you might, well, die. Admittedly, this would have been more upsetting if it hadn't happened in the midst of a century-long war with soldiers dying in droves, and the super-powered monsters they had been fighting hadn't just improved at targeting the chain of command.

Bribery money, without any indication as to what the anonymous briber wanted or expected. Sol had been trying to get him to keep it, and, when that hadn't worked, had suggested putting it into a betting pool on the subject of his own virginity, which had resulted in a spectacular fight and the subsequent destruction of the incriminating bills.

A beauty kit complete with peach-pink lipstick, manicure set, lavender-scented body wash and an equally floral-scented shampoo. He was still trying to pin this one on Sol, but had never found any conclusive evidence except a damnable smirk, and Sol tended to wear that smirk for all kinds of reasons.

And this.

Never, not in a million years, this.

_Dear Captain Kiske,_

_The Council of Illyuria would like to request your aid in a matter of extraordinary circumstances..._

----

"You've got to be kidding."

It had been his reaction when he had first heard the news, and it seemed his brain still hadn't quite gotten past that.

Most people who wanted to rule a country had to go to ridiculous lengths to get it—it always required manipulation, bribery, and a certain amount of explosives, whether of an actual or merely informational nature, no matter if one went through the official channels or attempted a coup d'état.

Only Ky, Sol reflected, would get a country handed to him in the mail.

"Don't tell anybody, but I kind of wish I were," Ky said, his fingers toying with the handle of his cup, moving it slightly back and forth in its saucer, the only outward sign of his discomfort.

Not that Sol could blame him—the situation was damn awkward, especially after all this time. Ky had always been a public figure, whether he liked it or not, but he had steered clear of politics whenever possible. To be practically begged to head a country as monarch, of all things, did not sit well with him. Not that it was sitting well with Sol.

"You said no, of course," he prompted, knowing all too well what the chances were. It was physically impossible for Ky to walk away from desperate pleas and suffering people. It was part of the whole savior complex he was nursing, and while Sol couldn't exactly blame the boy for it, he had hoped that Ky would learn that it was impossible to save every man, Gear, cat, mouse, and fluffy yellow canary in the world.

Ky's sigh was answer enough.

"You do realize that they're just lazy bastards, right?"

"That's not it. Illyuria's in a state of utter chaos, and I'm—"

"—responsible for it? You've _got_ to be kidding." The old urge to drag him outside for a good ass-kicking to beat the goddamn martyrdom out of him was still present and accounted for, but Sol knew it was a lost cause. "You clear out a group of crazies staging a coup, and it's _your_ fault?"

Ky furrowed his brows, obviously displeased with his sarcasm. "I didn't know the PWAB had connections to the government, but... it was my actions that brought about the current situation."

"Oh, right. I forgot. Of course you're responsible for every corrupt ass in this world."

"Sol..."

"Come on. You can't tell me you didn't think this through down to the tiniest detail before you went in and took them out. You'd rather have them with a whole country under their thumb?"

"Of course not," Ky said, staring into his tea.

Sol scowled. "Why are we even talking about this? No matter what I say, your mind's made up already, anyway. You're going to go in and spend the rest of your life haggling with a bunch of idiots over people's futures, exactly what you hate." He didn't add, "and make a big-ass target out of yourself", but that was more or less a given.

"I... don't know. I guess I wanted..." Ky trailed off. "Am I doing the right thing?"

"Ah, hell. This isn't a question of doing the wrong thing versus doing the right thing, boyscout. It's a question of self-preservation versus your ability to live with yourself if you walk away now."

"I do... feel responsible."

"See? And even if I beat you bloody with a cluebat, we both know how often you change your mind." Sol rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.

Ky stayed silent for a while, sipping at the tea. "...It will only be an interim solution," he said finally. "I'm not going to stay there forever, I just... I want to do what I can, and the sooner things settle down, the sooner..."

"Oh? And how long is this 'interim' going to be? Did they bother telling you that?"

More silence.

Sol heaved a sigh. "Just so we're clear on this. I'm giving you three years."

——

Illyuria was one of those nations whose natural beauty dazzled its visitors, easily leading them to overlook any spots marring its picture-perfection.

Indeed, the country often deliberately attempted to gloss over its internal political and economic problems with its outward splendor—or so Ky had been told by the earnest aide sent to meet him. And if he had simply been a tourist or a visiting diplomat, Ky admitted he himself might have been pulled into the illusion, at least for a little while.

The dressing room had a wonderful view of the palace gardens, and at least for the moment, letting his eyes sweep over the artistic creations of the gardeners and sculptors took his mind off the _other_ artistic processes going on right now.

A tiny sting in his side, and he could not quite suppress the urge to twitch away from it, which, of course, prompted more stings from other places.

"Ah, I'm so sorry, Your Majesty!" squeaked the tiny girl holding the needles, her face paling in horror.

"It's alright, it's alright," he hastened to reassure her, as she only seemed to become more nervous the more often she accidentally ended up pricking him with the pins, which led to a predictable result.

"He doesn't like that. He's not a majesty yet," hissed the girl beside her, glaring at her over the blue silk ribbon she was pinning to the hem.

"But it'll be weird later," the tiny girl hissed back, glaring just as fiercely.

He had noticed earlier on that they were having little conversations in these semi-stage whispers, somehow under the impression that he could not hear them, or perhaps just not caring. And while Ky had been subjected to his fair share of comments from virtual strangers, it was an entirely different experience to be standing on top of a stool, surrounded by a mountain of fabrics, threads and ribbons, and being poked and prodded by a congregation of giggling seamstresses, most of whom would blush when he addressed them, but who would keep up a shameless running commentary on the size of his waist or argue over which shades of blue went best with his eyes.

Ky had managed to dissuade them from putting him in high heels, but had lost the battle against their penchant for dresses—_robes_, he was assuaged, standard for Illyurian royalty, while the rest of them twittered at the prospect—and their love for intricate accessories. They seemed to be happily on their way to designing an entire wardrobe for him, and he was afraid if he gave them half a chance, it would actually be comprised of 365 different outfits, but he hoped that he could convince them to throw in a few that wouldn't require him to walk like a 18th century Rococo princess.

A transparent veil suddenly fell into his face, partly obscuring his line of sight.

"What's that supposed to be, Therese?"

"It would go well with the crown."

"No, it wouldn't. It'll take attention away from his hair. Put it away!"

Ky twitched.

"Do keep still, sir," the seamstress in charge admonished, hands hovering at his beltline. "We wouldn't want to damage anything valuable."

Ky spent the rest of the day staring fixedly out the window, telling himself that he wasn't hearing anything and that his face wasn't as hot as it felt.

——

Whoever had been in charge of planning that coronation ceremony, Sol thought, had had way too much time on their hands. Flags. Doves. White streamers on every house in the city. Raining flower petals. Giant overdone parade. Organ music. It felt like they were _marrying_ him to the crown instead of just putting the blasted thing on his head.

It was nauseating to watch, the whole idiotic pomp and ceremony was spoiling a good drink, but he still kept his eyes on the tiny screen in the bar, wondering at what point little electric sparks would start jumping between the multitude of ornaments they had stuck on Ky. His face betrayed nothing, of course, and Sol wasn't sure whether he should admire or be annoyed by that sort of stoic composure.

"I thought those sorts of things went out of fashion after they crowned the last Queen of England," Axl said, holding up thumb and forefinger in an attempt at deducing how long the fur-lined trail was. From the looks of it, it was stretching across half the cathedral aisle.

The camera cut to a close-up of Ky's face, and Sol could quite easily detect the discomfort lurking beneath his dignified expression. Years of experience in Ky-reading, and all that.

"Whoa, she's hot, though," Axl enthused. "I wouldn't mind taking orders from her, if you catch my drift."

"I'll be sure to tell him that next time I see him."

Silence.

"Wait. You mean. That's not—?"

Sol smirked.

Axl slumped forward, nearly knocking over his drink. "I hate the world."

Downing the rest of his gin, Sol slid off the stool and tossed a few coins on the bar-top. "Take your time piecing your shattered heterosexuality back together. I've got a bit of an errand."

Axl hardly seemed to hear him. "Not a chick..."

Snorting, Sol turned and made his way to the exit. The things he did for queen and country... Or maybe just queen.

——

"...I suggest you find some way to come incognito. This is an emergency."

The line went dead.

Ky put down the receiver, frowned slightly, and then took a moment to inform his staff that he would not be available for the rest of the day. Sol rarely contacted him in any way or form, and he had never used the word "emergency" before. If something actually did manage to break through his sturdy shield of imperturbability, his vocabulary tended to become limited to words with fewer syllables than "emergency".

To be called in such a serious tone was disconcerting, to say the least. He had known that it would be dangerous to further trace the corrupt Illyurian officials' connections to the PWAB, but asking Sol had seemed like it would lead to the fewest casualties. It was unsettling that Sol hadn't simply come here to tell him about the problem, but that could be due to a number of possibilities, and worrying about them would not help.

Whatever Sol had found had to be something unprecedentedly serious.

——-

"I."

If there was one sight he had never expected to see, it was that of Sol Badguy, sitting in a chair in a shady motel room, and holding a sleeping infant the way one might hold a very bizarre and unfamiliar object.

"I."

An infant with tiny blue-gray dragon wings stretching from its back, a scaly tail curling over its legs.

"_How_?!"

"You want the short version or the long version?" Sol asked, glancing warily at the sleeping baby.

"I," Ky said, taking a deep breath to get his brain unstuck. "The short version, please. I'm not sure I can handle anything else right now."

"Well, there was the usual stuff about terrorism and espionage and taking over the world, the standard Pinky and Brain stuff."

"The standard what?" Ky really didn't feel like dealing with cryptic references right now, still trying to wrap his mind around the implications surrounding the baby in front of him, who was very much not human. If the PWAB was manufacturing _Gears_...

"Forget it." Sol waved his free hand. "Point is, somebody thought it would be really funny to see what would happen if they stuck you and me in a blender."

"I."

"Yeah," Sol said ruefully. "No idea what they were planning to do with it."

He jerked his chin towards the baby, who blinked sleepily as the motion jostled it awake. Even in the dim light of the room, Ky could clearly make out the reddish glow of the mark, shining from its right eye, as it glanced around, obviously quite comfortable with its perch on a strange man's arm.

"I guess they wanted to raise it docile and see if they could go for mass-production. They've been down that road before, after all. Nice home-cooked controllable superwarrior."

The baby tilted his head a bit to observe Ky instead, and flung out its tiny arm, fingers curling in the air. "Fwiih!"

"Why us?" Ky murmured, stepping closer in spite of himself.

"I'd think that's obvious. Best fighters on the planet and all that. You'd rather they'd taken someone else as donor?"

"No," Ky amended hastily. "No, of course not." He didn't even want to imagine that.

When nothing happened, the baby seemed to lose interest in the human staring down at it, and started trying to grab at the straps dangling from Sol's vest.

"What do we do now?"

"You're asking me?" Sol said, raising his eyebrows. "You're the boyscout. I'd been hoping you'd have some ready-made solution for this one."

"I didn't exactly expect this when you told me this was an emergency," Ky sighed, running a hand through his hair. Official channels of any kind were out of the question—it would be impossible to put an infant Gear into the care of inexperienced humans. And Sol... There was only one solution, really, if he didn't want the child to end up dead, hurting people, or as live bait.

"I... I'd need your help with this. We'd need to hide his, uh, extra appendages, amongst other things. You're the Gear expert, and I have no idea how to..." He waved his hand.

"I _hunt_ Gears, there's a difference. I'm not exactly teaching them to walk."

"Sol..."

"Bah, stop looking at me like that. I didn't call you here to dump this all on your doorstep." He thought for a moment. "I mean, smartest thing to do would have been, you know. But you'd never forgive me for that. And it's kind of helpless. Tiny. Doesn't really fight back. I don't kick helpless things. It's no fun."

He poked the baby, who went cross-eyed at his finger, and did the only thing it knew how to do.

"Ow fuckity ow!"

Ky stared in fascination at the tiny, fiercely growling thing, dangling off Sol's finger like an animal refusing to let go of a toy.

"Fuck, of course they'd come with teeth," Sol cursed, shaking his hand and attempting to pry the baby off.

"I'm not sure what that child is," Ky said, fighting not to smile at the peculiar sight. "But it's certainly not helpless."

——

Bringing home an infant Gear was something he had not ever pictured himself doing. Bringing home an infant Gear which he had, in the widest sense of the word, fathered (and just thinking about the appropriate terms for this situation was a headache all in its own)... his brain tended to balk right around that part of the sentence and refused to continue. Ky was quite certain that this was insane, he was insane, they were _both_ insane, but abandoning the child was absolutely out of the question.

It was now even harder to think of the child as any kind of weapon, the makeshift limiter Sol had constructed from parts of his own covering the baby's eye, causing the wings and tail to retract into his body without a trace. The child looked, for all intents and purposes, like a normal human boy with an eye-patch.

The appearance was deceiving, however—Ky could feel the baby's strength even now, when the tiny hand would close around his index finger, pulling. It was hard to say what exactly was different, since Sol assured him he wouldn't be capable of breaking bones until he was around six or seven, and Ky had not exactly held many children, but there was no mistaking the sensation.

At least the child wasn't biting him, for reasons beyond his understanding. He only seemed to do that to Sol whenever Sol gave him half a chance, and would open and close his mouth in what might have been a vaguely threatening gesture, but which only ended up being mildly adorable.

The biggest and most immediate problem, according to Sol, would be the growth patterns. Since the baby was half human, he would be growing at the inconceivable rate of a year approximately every two months, and his mental development would not be far behind.

Ky had debated long and hard with himself over how to do this—he could not exactly disappear into the night, or attempt to conceal a child that would sooner or later develop the Lord knew what powers in a busy palace. And although the irrational urge to sneak into his own castle hadn't really abated, well... it was probably better this way.

"Your Majesty...!" the guards trailed off, clearly suppressing the urge to break the form and lean forward to peer at the bundle wrapped in the king's blue cloak.

"I apologize for my sudden absence," Ky said.

"Ih!" the bundle said, a single blue eye staring up at the guards in unabashed fascination, who were trying very hard not to do the same.

"I trust there have been no problems while I was gone?"

The guards straightened, snapping a salute again. "Not at all, Your Majesty."

Ky nodded, passing the gates and reining in the crazy urge to laugh as he could feel their baffled gazes trailing after him. Sometimes, it was nice not to have your motives called into question.

The head maid and a small portion of her staff were just barely holding back from running to meet him and staring at the reason why he had contacted her in the middle of the night, apologizing profusely and asking her to organize some kind of crib or pen. He would have to find a durable one later—"Titanium," Sol had suggested, "Maybe wire it so you can send through a charge", the last comment earning him a kick in the shin as the baby gurgled happily, considering this highly entertaining.

They all surrounded him as soon as he had stepped across the threshold, however, giggling and cooing over the baby, who seemed to think all of this very exciting, waving his arms to grab at their hair and frills.

"Awww, so cute!"

"So cute!"

"He's got His Majesty's eyes!"

"So adorable!"

One of them tickled the baby's cheeks, and belatedly it occurred to Ky that this might be a very, very bad idea—but all the baby did was sniff curiously and say, "Bah!", which prompted another round of "Cute!" and "Aw!" followed by, "What's his name?", "Can I hold him?" and "Who's your mommy?"

"Um," Ky said eloquently, realizing a little too late that he had come up with neither a name nor a convenient and easily acceptable excuse.

"Girls, you're all being very indiscreet," the head maid chided. "Give His Majesty some space. I'm sure this is a very long story and His Majesty has been up all night—he must be so exhausted!"

The girls blushed and fell back, to sporadic sounds of disappointment.

"Now I'm sure unless His Majesty has other tasks for you, that your hands are needed elsewhere," she instructed, shooing them away with a wave of her hand. More "aww"ing and reluctantly shuffling feet, but eventually they dispersed, leaving only Ky and the baby, who seemed equally disappointed that the spectacle was over.

"Um," Ky said, still trying to gather his wits. "I... Thank you, Estelle."

"Don't mention it, Your Highness. We'll keep your secret, don't you worry. Now, if you would follow me..."

——

As to be expected, the news spread through the palace like wildfire.

Within the day, every guard, cook, aide and servant was in the know, right down to the gardener's apprentice in charge of the royal bonsai collection, and they all considered themselves proud members of the very first royal conspiracy surrounding His Majesty Ky I, His Majesty's son and His Majesty's secret beloved, whose fragile health required her to rest far away from the stressful life at court, tearing her away from her lover and child. It was truly a heart-wrenching tale, a star-crossed romance in the middle of a period of political upheaval, and as much as the poor girl who could not be with her family had to be pitied, surely the one most deserving of sympathy was His Majesty himself, who had placed his duty to the people above his personal happiness. The least they could do, everyone agreed, was to protect both his child and his lover from the nosy public.

When the tale finally reached the nominal head of the conspiracy, he almost inhaled his tea.

There truly were no bounds to the human imagination. He had not even needed to say a single word—for which he was frankly grateful—and people simply saw what they wanted to see.

In comparison, the truth seemed almost boring.

The baby giggled, and promptly bit through his chew toy.

——

A formal baptism of any kind was impossible, but to keep referring to him as "the baby" seemed so horribly unloving, and Ky wasn't sure how much longer he could keep answering the rapid-fire inquiries as to the baby's name with, "Um."

"Bob."

Ky glanced up from the large leather-bound book on names resting across his lap, to Sol, locked in a slow-moving battle with the baby, who was alternately attempting to bite his hands, pull out his hair, or rip off parts of his clothing.

"I am not naming my child 'Bob'."

"Mini-Me."

Ky gave him a look.

"What, he looks like you. Stubborn and blond and fierce."

"You're insane," Ky surmised, and went back to flipping through the book for something that actually constituted a proper and fitting name.

Sol glanced at the baby, who had managed to get a hold of one of his buckles in the meantime, and was slobbering all over it. He opened his mouth.

"We're not naming him after a band, a band member, or a rock song," Ky said without even looking up.

"Damn." The baby spat out the buckle and decided to try for Sol's hand again, stretching up to grab it and growling when he would lift it just a little bit higher.

Ky concentrated on the book again, scanning the columns of names and their explanations. "...Siacre Isabel Nicetius."

This time, it was Sol's turn to stare. "Are you... And you're calling _me_ insane?! At least I wanted to name him something pronounceable!"

"Those are all perfectly acceptable names," Ky objected.

"Of what. Diseases?"

"French saints."

"It sounds like you're calling him Stolteheim Reinbach III. Why does he need that many, anyway?" Sol complained. "I'm pretty sure there was at least one girl's name in there."

"It's a tradition."

"What, giving the kid a complex by sticking him with names that will get him to have an identity crisis? Is your second name Marie-Claire?"

Ky glared. "I don't have a second name."

"Well, if you had, it'd probably be Jeanne d'Arc, anyway."

"At least I'm trying to come up with actual names. You were the one who wanted to call him 'thing'."

"If I can't pronounce them, they're not real names." Sol gave the boy a critical once-over. "Sin."

"What?"

"I'm using your stupid ideas to make them non-stupid. Whaddya say, kiddo? Sin seems like a good name, compared to what your mama wants to stick you with, huh."

"Mah!" the baby agreed, and beamed at Ky, who was barely resisting the urge to hit something with the giant book. Like Sol's regrettably durable skull.

"See? He likes it," Sol said, and took the opportunity to give the child a pat on the head, quickly retracting his hand when the newly baptized Sin lunged again.

———

The baby's name did stay "Sin", simply because Ky discovered that it was quite difficult to chastise "Siacre Isabel Nicetius" without losing his attention on the second name. And Sin had to be chastised a lot.

"I thought it was him that needed a bath?" Sol asked, grinning and surveying the dripping bathroom and the dripping Ky, who had simply stripped off his soaked attire at one point and joined Sin in the tub.

Sol's prediction about Sin's growth patterns had been quite accurate, as he was growing out of clothing almost faster than it could be bought, and had recently started his quest of giving Ky a heart attack before the age of twenty-five. Dumping oatmeal on his head for no reason whatsoever was one of the lesser problems, but getting it out of his hair wasn't. And he definitely could not entrust the task of bathing Sin to the maids, even though three of them had immediately volunteered. There was just too much of a risk that they'd try to slip off the eye-patch, or Sin did something that was distinctly not in the capacity of a normal human child to do. Like ripping the marble basket with the bathing utensils off the wall, even though that had been an earnest accident.

"It's just easier this way," Ky replied, dumping the third load of shampoo on Sin's head. Whatever was in that oatmeal was as potent as industrial glue. The task was further complicated by the fact that Sin was currently reenacting an epic battle between a plastic freighter and his sponge kraken.

"Bleah," Sin protested, swiping a hand over his own head in an attempt to get rid of the foam. Ky caught his hand before he could bring it to his mouth. At least it didn't smell like much of anything, as he really did not want to imagine what Sin would do when confronted with bubblegum or strawberry scented kids' shampoo.

"Admit it, the kid owned you," Sol said, and Ky sent him a dirty look.

"He seems to have gotten his common sense from you."

"Ohh, burned me good. But he still owned you. Right, kiddo?"

Sin considered this. Then, he grabbed the dangling ponytail and pulled Sol face-first into the tub.

——

Most parents experienced the age their children learned to toddle around on their own as a distressing time, requiring constant vigil against stairs, sharp corners, and open windows. Ky found himself in a similarly frazzled state during this period of Sin's rapidly accelerated infancy, if for entirely different reasons.

He had stopped fearing for his son's life after the realization had finally sunk in that Sin could, and would, come tumbling down the grand staircase for the sheer fun of it, and arrive headfirst at the bottom without so much as a scratch. He still couldn't get used to the idea of Sin leaping off a second story balcony, however, and found himself praying that the safety locks would hold until Sin was old enough to comprehend that giving his father a seizure was not a nice thing to do.

He had likewise learned that Sin would try to ingest anything at least once, and that the only thing that would stop him was if he found the object of choice impossible to fit into his mouth. There had been a rather embarrassing occurrence involving Sin and a box of tacks, which had required Ky, battle-hardened from the time Sin had managed to get a hold of the stapler, to gently coax him into spitting them out instead of swallowing them. He had been so involved in the task that he had completely missed the knock on the door, until Sin had turned his head and dutifully spat the last three tacks on the floor under the horrified gaze of a maid bringing in the afternoon tea.

Nothing, however, could have prepared him for the incident in the garden. Ky would later swear on his honor that he had only turned his head for a second to apologize to the gardener because Sin was cheerfully plucking a bouquet of tiger-lilies, complete with roots and clumps of earth attached, and when he turned back, Sin had been nowhere in sight.

What followed was the most frantic search of his life, as Sin possessed the inherent ability to reach any number of impossible places, which was cut short when the shrieking started.

It was coming from a pen of chickens—tiny, colorful birds with feet like feathery slippers, bred purely for decorative purposes—and Ky's heart sank as he ran towards the enclosure. He knew what he was going to find, knew that the birdish screams of terror and outrage could only mean one thing.

"Mwah!" Sin said around a mouthful of feathers, splatters of chicken blood on his cheeks, the squirming bird still held fast in his hands.

—-

"You know, you should spank him."

Behind the desk, Ky set down his pen and gave Sol the patented 'Did you hurt your head?' look.

"I'm serious," Sol said, studying the brat thoughtfully, who had settled on further dismantling an off-white cuckoo clock that had fallen victim to his curiosity at an earlier point in time.

When Ky had related the story of the chicken incident upon his visit to the castle, Sol had been forced to admit, if only to himself, that he had not anticipated such a situation, either. There were not exactly a lot of precedents for this kind of thing, but he had the distinct feeling that even if there had been, and somebody had taken it upon himself to write an entire series of books on the rearing of half-Gear children, Sin would still be the exception to each and every norm.

"Kid's only gonna grow stronger from now on, he'll start thinking of himself as pack leader if we don't do something."

"...Pack leader," Ky repeated flatly, clearly not happy with the idea of his child as some kind of feral cub.

Sol waved his hand in a vaguely illustrative motion. "It's a Gear thing."

"Right."

"Point is, he'll make himself boss of you in short order if you don't give him a smackdown."

Ky frowned. "So, let me get this straight. You're telling me to _physically abuse_ my child?"

The affronted tone made him grin. "No, I'm not. I'm telling you to put him in his place if you don't want him to go around chewing on the knighthood's horses next. You need to stop thinking of him as human and this as a morally reprehensible thing. He's not. This isn't."

"But—"

"Look," Sol said. "Right now, he's shaping up to be the Resident Tiny Death Machine Mk2, with none of the ability to grasp what's good and bad. He's a Gear. Only two modes of operation, remember?" He held up two fingers. "'Want'..."

Ky sighed. "'Do not want'."

"Exactly," Sol smirked.

A staccato of plastic clattering heralded Sin's successful dislodging of the shelf housing the records. The cuckoo clock was lying gutted on the floor, forgotten. Sol rolled his eyes, noting that Ky was suppressing his urge to run over and ensure his son's well-being. Well, at least he was learning.

The pile of CD cases wriggled, Sin crawling out from underneath it and looking at the chaos he had just created as if it were something that had happened completely on its own. Then, he reached for a blue case, sniffing.

"Hey, brat, don't stick that in your mouth. Mommy likes his violin concerto without teeth marks."

Sol was pretty sure that Ky was five seconds away from hitting him with a lightning bolt. Sin blinked questioningly at the order. When nothing followed, he raised the CD case to his mouth, and bit into it with a resounding crack.

Ky winced.

"See?" Sol said and got up, walking over just as Sin began to take an interest in a red one. Before the brat could destroy this one, too, he cuffed him upside the head.

Sin stared up at him, completely aghast.

"Yeah, you know what that means. Stop it. Bad thing."

Sin's gaze shifted from his face, to his hand, to the CD case still clutched in his own fingers, before dropping it on the floor. "Bad thing!" he declared proudly, gazing up at Sol expectantly.

"Now you got it."

He turned back to Ky, who was staring at both of them as if they had just grown another head. "See? Foolproof method."

Ky frowned, still visibly disturbed at the idea of hitting his own child. "How far can I trust your expertise here?"

Sol shrugged. "Hey, if you want, you can always ring up Testament and you mommies can exchange tips on raising infant Gears."

Ky scowled. "I'm pretty sure Dizzy isn't—"

He stopped to blink at Sin, who had latched onto an antique chair and was attempting to chew through one of its legs.

"...an omnivore?" Sol supplied helpfully.

Ky merely put his head into his hand and sighed.

——

Most children, by the time they reached Sin's current outward age, had mastered several basic survival skills, such as "do not touch fire", "do not poke yourself with scissors", and the ever important "do not prod the electric socket."

Sin, despite having such concepts drilled into him from the beginning, periodically seemed to forget about them, which accounted for the current situation.

"It wasn't me!" the amorphous mass of sizzling electricity proclaimed into the darkness, and Ky was almost sure that between the flares of blue lightning, he could still see Sin's finger stuck in the electric socket.

"You go kick him," Sol said. "You're the one with the lightning affinity."

"Well," Ky surmised after a sound whack to the head. "At least now we know he isn't capable of setting the palace on fire."

——

A tug on his sleeve made him glance up from his paperwork, to be confronted with a pandemonium of colorful squiggles.

"I made this!" Sin declared, holding out the sheet to him with all the pride and self-importance of a four-year-old who had just gone through considerable effort to draw… a six-headed, three-tailed dragon caught in what looked like a violent explosion.

_Ah._

"That's really great, Sin."

Sin beamed even more as Ky squinted at the paper, counting the monster's limbs and coming up with an uneven number. And… was that _print_ there?

_Hereby the Kingdom of Illyuria declares..._

"Where did you get this?"

Sin blinked at him, slightly confused, but Ky didn't really need an answer. The torn-up drawing book, each page filled with Sin's artistic creations, combined with the fact that Sin had arranged a neat little stepladder in the form of several heavy books to reach the top of his desk, told him all he needed to know.

Sighing, Ky soundly brought his knuckles down on top of Sin's head. "If you run out of paper, just tell me. Using my peace treaties is a bad thing."

He waited for the echo of "Bad thing!" that signaled Sin's comprehension, but what he got instead was a high-pitched squeal as Sin lunged at his legs.

"Ow!" It was more surprise than pain, the bite dulled by layers of cloth.

Sin had never turned on him before. It was always Sol who got subjected to the power of his jaws, whose shins he used to practice punches until Sol got annoyed and kicked him away. A Gear thing, Sol had said. They recognized their own kind, and got competitive.

"En garde!"

Of all the French sayings he had to pick up, of course it would be this. Sin was grinning at him, face shining with anticipation.

A challenge. The Lord save him from rebellious phases.

"No," Ky said decisively, and followed up on it with a jolt. Medium power, so Sin would actually feel it. Damn elemental tolerance. It was a good thing he had no idea how to shield yet.

Sin stared at him, partly disappointed, partly in awe. Neither of his parents had used magic on him before.

"No?"

His hair was rising up in a halo around his head, making him look like a porcupine. Ky had to fight to keep his lips from twitching. "No."

Sin pouted. "Oh-kay..."

"Good. Now let's see about that paper," Ky said, and reached for the key to open one of the drawers in his desk. He had to keep them locked, lest Sin go on a quest to uncover their mysteries, or use their contents to make booby traps.

Maybe, he reflected, it was time to try the logic-and-reason thing again. After all, there had to be something of him in there, too—no reason why Sol should be the only one to gloat. That, and he didn't have a Gear's healing power to save his shins.

——

Methods for entertaining a child Gear had to be chosen carefully. It wasn't that Sin was particularly hard to entertain, seeing how he thought it was funny to jump down from high places over and over, it was simply that he was so impressionable that Ky didn't dare introduce him to the wonders of TV and its indestructible cartoon characters. It would only give him ideas.

Ky thought reading stories to him was a much more productive way to spend the time, not to mention much safer. And at least until Sin had learned to read, Ky would be the one to select the books with the least likely chance of doing permanent damage. Books with heroic witches and wizards were already out—the last thing he needed to happen was for Sin to identify with one of them so thoroughly that he would go around practicing his magic to fight the forces of evil wherever he went. Plus, they kept yelling out their spells, which wasn't a very smart thing to do. Anything featuring cowboys and Indians was similarly out of the question—he really did not want to imagine the scenarios that included Sin building himself a bow and running around shooting things.

Reading _20,000 Leagues under the Sea_ led to some epic struggles in the bathtub, in which Sin attempted to smother both of them with his sponge kraken. _Journey to the Center of the Earth_ gave the royal gardeners an aneurysm when they discovered the hole in the center of the immaculate lawn trimmed in the shape of Illyuria's crest, six feet deep and wide enough to fit an entire exploration party inside. Sin was very disappointed to learn that one could not actually dig to the Earth's core, and that it was full of lava instead of giant mushrooms, dinosaurs, and underground oceans, and thus nobody would be able to survive there. Sin emphatically insisted that, "Pa could do it!", but agreed to abstain from any further digging expeditions on the grounds that _he_ was not the one with an affinity to fire.

Ky admitted that he should have given up after these two disasters, but still made a last attempt at classic literature with _From the Earth to the Moon_, since it was so utterly unrealistic that Sin could not possibly be lured into believing it, but apparently there were no bounds to his imagination.

"Sin," Ky said very calmly, tapping his foot and peering into the muzzle of the ancient ceremonial cannon stationed on top of the castle tower. "Come out of there. Even if you did find gunpowder—which you won't—and fire—which you won't, and no, you can't ask Pa—the cannon still won't be able to catapult you out of the atmosphere and onto the moon. No, you don't get to test it."

"D'awwww."

After that, Ky decided to settle for simple fairytales and a thorough explanation of the same after reading, to prevent any misconceptions. However, this, too, was easier said than done.

"Wow, that's stupid," Sin observed, staring at the illustration of Little Red Riding Hood being menaced by the wolf. "Why didn't she take her sword to grandma's?"

"Um," Ky said, and tried his best to explain that normal children were not commonly proficient in martial arts.

"But why isn't she, if there's a Gear in the forest?"

Ky had to admit the logic was infallible, right down to labeling the wolf a Gear, since it more resembled a ten-foot werewolf than anything else. In the end, he simply agreed that Little Red Riding Hood wasn't very smart and that a Gear hunter came to kill the Gear, to prevent any further protestations.

Jack and the Beanstalk met with similar problems, since Sin thought a giant was hardly a proper threat for a true hero.

"Fine," Ky sighed. "Jack swiftly climbed the beanstalk to the castle in the clouds, where the evil Gear Justice lived."

"Yay!"

"He stole the treasure from the castle and ran—"

"Boo," Sin said.

"Alright, he turned around, drew his sword and slew the evil Gear Justice."

"With a gunflame!"

"With a— Yes. With a gunflame."

It didn't help, of course, that Sol came up with his very own ideas of what constituted a proper fairytale.

"I don't remember Cinderella packing quite that much ammunition," Ky remarked, noticing with dismay that Sin was actually quite fond of this mangling of a perfectly harmless story. Except for the chopped feet.

"It's all hidden in the pumpkin," Sol said, grinning like a fiend in the face of imminent pain and dismemberment. "The fairy godmother bought it all in bulk, so they threw in a ground-to-air missile as a bonus."

"Is there a special reason why she's nuking the prince?" Ky said, feeling the first signs of an oncoming headache.

"Uh, would you wanna shack up with somebody who can only recognize you by the size of your _feet_?"

Ky refrained from retorting that a certain individual's reasoning for crawling into bed with him had been that he smelled "really nice", but that wasn't suitable for their audience, who was absorbing every word of the discussion and undoubtedly hoping that it would end up in a fight.

At least, Ky was able to console himself with the fact that Sol's plan of bastardizing fairytales completely backfired when they finally arrived at Sleeping Beauty.

"And then the really cool prince with the awesome taste in music groped the princess awake—"

"And she kicked him in the nuts for not asking permission!" Sin crowed.

Sol stared.

"Mom says you should always ask a girl!" Sin said, nodding sagely. "...Even if it's not a girl." He paused. "Actually, you should probably always ask."

Across the room, Ky choked on his tea.

——

There came a time when Sin was no longer satisfied with punching things or climbing the highest tower—he had observed the knights in their training, and more importantly, he had seen some of his parents' lightshows, and was growing bored with just learning to control the ebb and flow of magic and aiming for specific targets.

After the third time of catching Sin in the act of attempting to steal an ornamental piece of armor from the displays around the palace—each time a different one, because Sin could be very sneaky when he had to—Ky decided that there would be no way around teaching Sin how to use some kind of weapon. Not that he had been planning to avoid it, it was simply a matter of finding a weapon that was least likely to cause too much collateral damage, and waiting until Sin was old enough to understand the principles of discipline and restraint when it came to fighting human opponents.

Ky didn't want to imagine Sin with any kind of projectile weapon—not that he was the type to be able to stand still long enough for that, and he likewise did not want to imagine Sin with sharp and pointy things as he had seen entirely too many accidents—he never wanted to relive the moments of catching Sin attempting to ingest a kitchen knife, thinking himself some kind of oriental sword swallower.

In comparison, teaching Sin how to fight with a staff seemed like a smart thing. Ky reasoned that it significantly lessened the chances of him gouging out his own or anyone else's eyes, and Sin's head was a durable thing. It had withstood many encounters with walls, doors, and the ground, not to mention Sol's less than gentle fist, and it was thus not very likely that Sin would get worse if he whacked himself on the head.

Sin found training "awesome", though he drove his instructors insane with his attempts at freestyling, and insisted on practicing wherever he went. Ky simply took to removing valuable objects from the corridors and warning people that if they saw a maniacally grinning five-year-old armed with a staff, they should turn tail and flee.

When he came to visit, Sol was underwhelmed by the sight of the kid twirling what amounted to a baton.

"Real men use swords."

"Yeah, well," Sin said, practically oozing confidence, "Real men can't do this."

And he had improved, actually managing an overhead swing, and another, and another, and the twirl from side to side, and the shoulder roll, but then the staff slipped when he attempted to toss it beneath his leg, sending it cartwheeling straight between Sol's legs.

Ky winced, and politely redirected his line of sight to his son, who seemed stunned by the fact that he had just managed to fell his father. "Uh oh."

"I suggest you start running," Ky advised. "You've already given yourself a head start."

A groan. "Fucking miserable little—"

"Uh, yeah. Bye, mom!"

——

Once Sin actually managed to do the routine without hurting himself—and others—too much, his weary master gave him one final piece of advice to take to heart, before leaving the castle with the vague feeling that he had just helped create a monster.

Sol thought that, "The weapon is part of yourself. Treat it as such," was just a fancy way of saying "don't break your baton", but Sin thought it was deep and philosophical and definitely required his staff to be as individualistic and distinctive as he was.

"When people call you distinctive, that's not a compliment," Sol said, observing Sin sitting on a spreadsheet, painting himself in stripes of blue and red—sometimes, he even managed to get some of it on the pole, which seemed to be the true goal of the exercise.

"It's gonna be cool," Sin said confidently, disappearing to pay a visit to the seamstresses, and returning with a roll of denim and fabric markers.

"What's that for, now?"

"Sunskirt," Sin said, and began scrawling across the cloth.

"What?"

But Sin didn't answer, absorbed in his task.

"He's making a 'sunskirt'," Sol told Ky, who had been working away at his desk, in the hope that he would be able to make sense of the kid's antics.

"Oh," Ky said, as if it were all perfectly obvious. "He probably means 'Sanskrit'. We read a book on India some time ago. It said they had flags with Sanskrit writing proclaiming important things. The pictures probably impressed him."

"So he's making... a flag," Sol said very slowly.

"Yes."

"With Sanskrit."

"Yes."

"That's special."

"Yes."

"Special in the _head_."

"...Yes."

"I like it!" Sin said, waving around the makeshift flag.

"It looks like pants on a—ow."

"That's great, Sin," Ky said, smiling, and removed his heel from Sol's foot.

.

.

.

.

-----

- TBC -

**A/N: C&C is much appreciated.**

1) I'm pretty much working with the characters that have grown on me from playing GG/X and beyond. In that context, for example, I have trouble seeing Ky willingly taking on a position of political power for a variety of reasons. And I'm including X-verse characters for the hell of it. XD  
2) I think Sin might actually have an outward appearance similar to Dizzy's—aka wings and a tail, for example. Dizzy can make hers small at the best of times, but doesn't seem to be able to hide them completely. I assume Sin would be the same, and thus requires a limiter.  
3) My sincere apologies to anyone named Siacre Isabel Nicetius, Marie-Claire, or Stolteheim Reinbach III. XD  
4) As I said above, please do forgive any resemblance to Pants on a Stick.  
5) I do not advocate physical violence against children of any age. Also, yes, I called Ky a mommy. Again. Between that and the fist-to-the-head, I think the Internet feminists will have my hide. *glances around nervously*  
6) The flora and fauna were not harmed in the making of this fic... much.  
7) Jules Verne is probably rolling in his grave by now. XD In case you don't know, he's commonly thought to be one of the first science fiction authors, and certainly the first to talk about submarines and space travel. _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ includes, amongst other things, a battle between a giant squid and Captain Nemo's submarine Nautilus, _Journey to the Center of the Earth_ deals with an exploration party digging to the Earth's core and discovering all kinds of impossible wonders, and _From the Earth to the Moon_ deals with space travel at a time where airplanes hadn't even been thought of yet, so the characters get shot to the moon with the help of a giant cannon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Unlawful Appropriation  
**Fandom:** Guilty Gear Overture  
**Pairing/Characters:** Sol/Ky, Sin  
**Part:** 2/3  
**Rating:** PG-15  
**Warning:** AU, humor  
**Disclaimer:** If I owned Overture, the entire thing would've made a bit more sense. XD

.

**Unlawful Appropriation**  
_**Part II**_

.

.

The mist rising from the southern forests, he had been told, was a phenomenon that could be observed throughout the year, lending the entire stretch of woodland a mystical, almost eerie quality. It was wafting gently through the air, randomly growing thicker and thinner, and curling low on the ground, making it treacherous to walk.

"Your Majesty, please be careful, it's—"

"I'll be fine. Lead the way."

"Yes, Your Highness."

It was a shame that he had to come here under these circumstances; the forest was beautiful. Sin had begged to come along, and had resorted to pouting when Ky had remained firm. There was no way he was bringing a child to witness the extent of human cruelty.

"How long?" he asked his guide, a member of the nearby town's council.

"A week at most, Your Highness," the young man said. "One of the forest rangers came across it on a routine inspection two days ago. We sent word immediately after that."

Ky nodded, and the man went on, visibly uneasy, "We didn't touch anything—left everything exactly as we found it. Even though... the body..."

"You've done the right thing." It didn't seem right to deny the dead their rest, but he needed to see everything with his own eyes.

"The villagers are sticking together. We've tried to question them, but..." He swallowed. "They're good people, Your Highness, hard workers, I don't understand how..."

Ky simply shook his head. He understood, to a degree. Nobody who had survived the Crusades had come out unscarred.

"It's up ahead now, Your Highness," the guide said, but it was not really necessary. He could tell by the smell.

Quickening his step, he left the man behind and approached what appeared to be a rickety fence, half hidden by the underbrush. A black cloud of flies lifted at his approach, and he was forced to cover his mouth at the stench.

The creature had been cut open and left to bleed dry from the injuries of countless weapons, nailed to the ground by its arms and legs in a grotesque travesty of crucifixion. The perpetual moistness of the air kept the blood fresh on the ground, staining the leaves and moss in puddles. It had been a lizard type, barely taller than a human child, the remains of a robe of bird feathers sticking to its scaly body.

Beyond the circle of blood stood a dome of twigs and leaves serving as shelter, a simple nest for a bed, nuts and fruit piled in a corner, and…

Ky stepped closer and picked up one of the pieces, carefully turning it over in his hands. The creature had been carving, an array of tiny animals cut from pieces of wood—squirrels, birds, deer...

He placed the figurine back on the ground, clenching his fists.

Intelligent. It had been intelligent, perhaps it had even been able to speak, to plead for its life as they had tortured it to death.

Ky had seen enough. There would be things he needed to do, the least of which was to arrange a proper burial, but for now... he stepped to the Gear's side, unmindful of the blood staining his boots, and pulled the crude pegs from its hands and feet, before bowing his head in silent prayer.

* * *

There were few people who were stupid enough to bother him when he was drinking—one would have thought the general aura of "fuck off or I'll feed you your teeth" would deter anyone, but there were always a few who wouldn't get the hint.

Or maybe they did, and were just too damn dedicated to their jobs or too dependent on their paychecks to let it go.

He wondered which it was with this one, though it seemed from the way the boy was sweating and twisting his hands nervously, his eyes darting around looking for escape routes, that he was reconsidering his priorities.

Maybe he should speak up, Sol thought, before the kid had an accident in his pants. "Yeah?"

"I. Um. M-Mr. Badguy?"

"Who wants to know that."

Was the kid hyperventilating?

"Ah. I. I h-have this delivery for you. And. Um." He thrust said delivery out to Sol, looking like he was expecting to be beaten into a pulp for it.

Sol blinked at the proffered item. Well. That was certainly… new.

"I know nothing!" the boy squeaked, and took off running before Sol could say anything further.

* * *

"You're getting more creative with cryptic messages, I see."

Ky looked up from his work, stacks of forms piled high on both sides of his desk, leaving only a small free square at the center. It reminded Sol of the old days, although the desk back then had been a far less impressive construction. He could recognize that glazed look in his eyes that came from staring at too much paperwork—Ky had liked to joke (once he'd actually realized it wasn't a crime) that it was sometimes hard to remember that he was supposed to be fighting Justice, not bureaucracy.

Sol crossed the room, wagging the single blue rose at him. "Unnerved the heck out of the delivery kid, though."

"I think that's entirely due to the recipient and not the flower," Ky said.

"A combination of both, I'd say. What's it for, anyway? Some new way of promising death? Or is it just 'get home now or I'm gonna beat your ass'?"

"Stupid." Ky rolled his eyes.

The moment of humor faded away, Ky completing the last signature with a flourish. He took an envelope from a stack of blank ones and began folding up the letter in the sort of anal-retentive fashion one would expect from an origami artist. Sol watched, and when nothing else was forthcoming, he finally decided to prompt him. Ky wanted something, that much was obvious, and there was nothing he disliked more than needing another person's help.

"So?"

Sealing the letter and stacking it in his overflowing outbox, Ky drew a deep breath. "There's been a… development."

Sol frowned. "Cut the beautification talk, boyscout, I'm not one of those bootlickers."

"Alright. There's a problem," Ky amended, his mouth curling slightly. "You're well aware that there have been sightings of several sentient Gears over the past few years. I've been… conducting my own investigations, of course."

His brows knit slightly, obviously unhappy with being forced to keep a being with a human level of awareness and intellect under surveillance. The cynic in Sol wanted to snort at that. Only Ky would have moral qualms about tracking the creatures that had nearly wiped the Earth clean not so long ago. He himself barely trusted Dizzy as far as he could throw her, and she was perhaps the most un-Gearish Gear on the planet.

"A sentient Gear... was killed near the southwestern border. I have reason to believe that it was peaceful and did nothing to provoke an attack. But that's not all. Some hardliners have gotten wind of this. They're trying to push me into making the intelligence public," Ky was saying. "They want to reveal to Illyuria, no, the world, who these Gears are and where they can be found."

Well, shit.

As little love as he had for the rest of his own kind, and as much as a bunch of sentient bioweapons traipsing around freely didn't sit well with him, he knew what publishing such a list meant. Mass panic among the populace, and a witch-hunt of epic proportions.

His eyes never leaving Sol's face, Ky nodded. "I won't let that happen, of course. I'll destroy the information before it can fall into the wrong hands. This isn't the war, and I refuse to let it become like that again. I didn't take this job so people would end up living in fear and innocents would die."

"But that's not why you called me here."

He knew, of course, what Ky was going to say, could tell from his softening expression what this was all about. "Sin."

Ky drew a deep breath, searching for the right words.

"I… can't keep him here. Not with the situation as it is. I'll do everything to keep it from going out of control, but there is no telling what will happen if one of them… notices." He paused. "He's been growing so fast. So far, the palace has been a safe place. Here, I can select who gets close to him. Who is trustworthy. And it's the same thing all over again, they trust me because…"

Because they thought him to work miracles, so he was allowed certain eccentricities. It was ironic, Sol thought, how little things had changed from the war.

"We expected this to happen, though."

"Of course." Ky bit his lip. "Of course. I just hoped… he'd be a little older by then. A little more…" He trailed off. "I don't even want to imagine what happens if somebody lets something slip. Just says something to the wrong people at the wrong time. They'd pounce on him like bloodhounds, now that that's cropped up."

"So, you want me to…"

A slight smile. "He's been asking to go outside, recently. And I can't blame him. The palace only offers so many places to explore… or trash. I don't want to cage him. But…"

"You'd need somebody who isn't in the spotlight to do this."

"I'm thinking it's time you live up to your responsibilities. He is partly yours, after all." Ky didn't add, "and it shows", but that came across, anyway.

As before, the bout of teasing was short-lived, Ky's eyes darkening again at the thought of things to come.

"You don't have to stay here, you know. I'm a wanted criminal anyway, who's to say I'm above kidnapping the king?" It was an unfair offer, a selfish one, and Sol knew that even as he made it. Ky would never lightly take the decision to leave his son like that, if he thought there was another way.

"I can't do that, Sol. I can't leave things as they are, allow a government of witch hunters to succeed me. I need to gain control of the situation first. And once it's calmed down, maybe…" Sol followed his gaze to a sheet of paper, which had been folded and unfolded many times, Ky's neat handwriting citing excerpts of laws, and below that…

_Unknown Species Protection Act…?_

"You're not serious."

"I—"

"You're not serious," Sol repeated, working to keep the growl out of his tone. _Of course_ he would be serious, the foolish, hard-headed boy. Only he would attempt such a form of reconciliation, would try to protect every innocent, even those that were loose cannons.

_The fluffy yellow canaries come with teeth, boyscout._

"You're mad. They'd never let you live this down. You might as well paint a fucking target on yourself, if you push for that."

"I—"

"They'd label you the enemy of humanity, and you know it. There's nobody on this planet who hasn't lost somebody in that goddamn war, who hasn't seen what Gears are capable of. If we ever become the sort of thing that's used to scare children into bed, then that'll be an improvement."

"I know that, don't you think?" Ky said, but his voice was quiet.

Sol huffed. "Putting yourself in the line of fire like that is a fucking stupid idea. It wouldn't do any good. If one of us goes haywire, any law out there would be worth crap, anyway. And there's too few of us around for it to really matter."

"It does never _not_ matter."

"Aw, hell. Stop looking like I just kicked your puppy. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know," Sol muttered.

"I do know," Ky sighed, eyes avoiding Sol's. "I know. I just wish the world would let it happen."

Sol stayed silent.

* * *

Sin thought that going outside was the most awesome plan ever, bouncing up and down on the bed as his father was moving about the room, packing a few things into a simple traveling bag.

Ky found himself smiling at his son's excited chattering in spite of himself, though it made him wonder how much Sin had actually been listening past a certain point.

"And I wanna go on an airship and see the giant rotating bridge and the hom… homo… very big chocolate pudding with the fighting girls and the—"

"The _what_?" Ky asked, sure that he had misheard.

"Pa says there's a giant chocolate pudding in that one town with the big shiny dome and girls fight over who gets to eat it. I wanna fight, too! I bet I can eat it!"

"I… am quite sure that's not real chocolate," Ky said, mentally vowing to use the next chance to remind Sol _emphatically_ of what not to talk about in front of Sin. As lost a cause as that was, it would at least give him some satisfaction.

"Awww," Sin said. "But I'm gonna go see the huge scaly Gears and the tiny hopping furry Gears with the sharp claws and the colossal ugly flying Gears with the thousand eyes and I'm gonna draw them all and…"

It would never not be surreal, Ky reflected, to hear a small child babbling enthusiastically about things he'd faced down by the dozen, and which were still giving most of the veterans nightmares. He zipped the bag closed and beckoned Sin with a wave of his hand.

"Let's go. He's waiting."

"Un!"

Sin launched himself off the bed and grabbed his flag from where it was leaning against the wall, dashing to the door. Ky followed, albeit more slowly.

Sol was waiting for them at the exit, trying to make himself seem inconspicuous against the wall, and if Ky hadn't known better, he would have said that Sol was looking a bit uncomfortable.

"Pa!" Sin exclaimed, preparing for a tackle, but Ky placed a hand on his shoulder, holding him back. Sin looked up at him quizzically.

"We won't be able to see each other for a while now, Sin," Ky said, letting the duffel bag slide to the ground and bending down on one knee.

"So, I want you to take good care of yourself. Listen to your father… except when he says bad words. Or tells you that bathing is optional. Or that raw meat is a healthy diet. Or that grunting is a language. Actually… don't listen to him. You're safer that way."

As he was talking, he reached under his collar and tugged the ornate golden cross free, unclasping the chain and fastening it around Sin's neck instead. It looked ridiculous on Sin's small frame, the pendant dangling somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach.

Sin blinked at the gift, and then blinked some more as he was pulled into a tight hug.

"Be good, okay?" Ky murmured.

"Oh-kay," Sin said plaintively, squirming a little when the seconds passed and his father still did not let go.

Chuckling, Ky released him, rising and picking up the bag again. Sin ran ahead to the exit, jumping up and down in impatience as Ky shoved the bag at Sol.

"Don't drag him into seedy bars."

"So un-seedy ones are okay?"

"And don't use him as Gear bait."

"Damn, I was planning on that."

"Stop telling him about naked people wrestling in pudding."

"I didn't say they were naked."

"And for the love of holy, don't ever teach him how to be like you!"

"Aw, love you, too."

Ky glared.

Sol was smirking, leaning in closer. "Don't I get a proper goodbye kiss?"

"I'll show you goodbye," Ky threatened, the air around him crackling with static electricity.

"So prissy," Sol said, before turning around and stalking towards the exit. "C'mon, brat, let's get out of here."

"You got in trouble!" Sin observed, obviously delighting in this fact.

"Heh. Your mom's just being stingy."

"With pudding?" Sin asked.

"Something like that," Sol said, and neatly sidestepped the lightning bolt aimed at his rear.

* * *

The brat, Sol thought, really hadn't gotten out much.

He had never seen anybody gawk so much at the naked countryside before. Not that the view wasn't nice and all, standing on top of a mountain above a sea of clouds, but Sol had thought that after half a day, the novelty would have worn off.

Then again, Ky hadn't exactly been able to take the brat anywhere, or the media would have been on him in an instant. It was kind of a miracle that the reporters hadn't been having a field day from day one, what with the illustrious Illyurian monarch suddenly acquiring a kid that looked startlingly like him, no woman in sight, and with said kid aging by a year every two months or so. Ky had to have some _really_ loyal castle staff.

"What's that!" Sin pointed at a cluster of fir trees. It had been going on like this for a while, the brat pointing out objects in the landscape and demanding to be told what they were called.

"Tree."

The brat scowled. "What kind!"

_Pseudotsuga menziesii_, the scientist in him supplied. _Grouping…_

"...Dunno."

"And that!"

A cluster of tiny yellow flowers, this time, huddled next to a stretch of plain rock.

_Tussilago farfara. Typically about four inches in height. Blooms from—_

"Flower."

Sin's scowl deepened. "And that!"

Sol squinted at a random cloud floating overhead. Was the brat _playing_ with him?

He glanced at him and caught the gleam in Sin's eye. "Brat."

"Mom always explains stuff to me," Sin said, and damn if he didn't have that reproachful look down to a T.

Sol rolled his eyes. Normally, Ky was there to pull the brat off him when he got too annoying, Ky was the one responsible for the explaining and the teaching and all the other kiddie stuff. Sol got to point and laugh occasionally, make Ky mad, and apply his own internal psychology to keeping the bioweapon components in check.

It wasn't that he _minded_ the brat, not really, it was just that if anybody had told him beforehand that he'd acquire a kid more than 150 years in the future, he'd have laughed and then knocked their teeth in.

_But then again, you would have done the same if anybody had told you where you'd end up with the boyscout, and that's coming along swimmingly._

He huffed.

"Item number one, kid. Mom does that, and I do this. Get used to it." He paused. "Number two. That? Is a cloud."

Sin giggled.

_Swimmingly._

* * *

After the initial weirdness, the brat proved to be half as annoying as he'd seemed at first. It helped that he listened for the most part when Sol did have something to say, and asked relevant questions when he wasn't playing word games. Which happened more often than Sol would have liked, but after listening to the brat for a few days, cheerfully stringing along words to create monstrosities such as "Gear-hunter-fee-reception-office-lady-scowl", Sol was convinced that Ky's fear of him teaching the kid how to communicate in monosyllables was entirely unfounded.

It didn't even bother him that much, once it all kind of started blurring together into background noise, and Sin didn't require him to listen to his chatter.

It was fine, really, right until a few weeks in, when Sin started wanting mommy-cuddlies and telling mommy about his adventures and showing mommy his pictures and whyyyyy can't we go see him right now!

Well. That was decidedly not what he needed. Sol frowned and poked at the fire for a bit. "He explained that to you."

Sin shuffled his feet, leaving long tracks in the gravel.

"We can't go, end of story. It's late now, and your mom would kill me if I brought you back there."

"But why."

"He told you," Sol said, mentally cursing the kid's attention span. "It's dangerous."

"But why."

"Because you're a Gear."

"I'm not afraid," Sin said, scowling.

"That's not the point. Your mom's worried."

"But mom is strong!"

Clamping down on the urge to use the 'fist-to-the-head' method, Sol palmed his jacket for the pack of cigarettes. He really wanted a smoke right now, Ky's rules about smoking in front of the kid be damned. He needed to stop being irritated long enough to try and figure out how to best explain politics to a child Gear that had "want"-mode on full blast and was refusing to accept no for an answer.

_Remarkably like someone else we know, hm?_

There was the mental equivalent of a swat from the other side of his consciousness, but nothing else.

"This isn't something you can smack down with a sword. ...Or a flag," he amended. "Sometimes, the world is more complicated than that. Sucks, but what can you do. I'm afraid you're stuck with me for the time being, kiddo."

After a moment, Sin nodded slowly, turning his gaze to the fire.

Satisfied that the kid seemed to have understood at least that much, Sol finished the cigarette, extinguishing the butt against the ground. They'd have a taxing day tomorrow. Tracking down those dragonfly types was always a pain. And he'd have to sleep with one eye open, too, in case the kid did something foolish like attempting to trek back to mommy all on his own.

Prodding the flames one last time, Sol stretched out on his back, one arm tucked under his head. "Better get some shuteye. I'm not lobbing you around tomorrow if you're tired."

No response.

Turning his head, the kid hadn't moved, hunching his shoulders and still staring in front of himself without really looking at anything. Damn if he hadn't gotten the kicked-puppy-look from the master.

"Aw hell," Sol muttered, flinging out an arm and grabbing the kid by the back of his suspenders. "C'mere."

"Mmph!"

With the kid went the flag, which smacked Sol across the knees as Sin twisted to face him, blinking in surprise.

"I'd hate to explain to your mom why that frown on your face is permanent. I'm seeing the inside of his bedroom little enough as it is."

And damn if that smile wasn't as bright as a 100-Watt Christmas tree, too. Sol rolled his eyes as the kid went about wedging himself in the crook of his arm, dragging the flag over himself as he'd done every night since Sol had picked him up. The heavy cloth flopped onto Sol's chest and promptly slid off again, barely long enough to cover even half of him.

Sin grunted and pushed it back up again, only to be rewarded with the same result.

"Give it up, kiddo. That won't work."

"Hmm. We'll have to get a bigger one," Sin mused.

Resigned to his fate, Sol said nothing.

* * *

Sometimes, Sol wondered why he had ever agreed with Ky that putting Sin on a leash was a cruel and inhuman thing to do. Then he remembered that _not_ agreeing would have banished him from the bedroom for the next six months, but that still wasn't a good reason why he hadn't bought one as soon as they were out of the castle. Because, damn it, he really, really should have.

It wasn't unusual to lose a child in a crowd, but most children weren't armed and didn't have the attention span of a gnat.

Sol kept hoping that he had just been distracted by something shiny, and since there were a lot of shiny things to be gawked at in the middle of a festival, that didn't exactly limit his search perimeter.

Nobody was screaming bloody murder at the food stalls, which meant that Sin couldn't possibly have gone for the candy booth. Ditto for the game stalls, since Sin did not only have the accuracy to win a lifetime's supply of stuffed animals, but also had the tendency to completely misjudge his own strength. Sol hoped that he hadn't gotten as far as the carnival rides, since he really didn't feel like being a respectable citizen and paying for property damage, never mind explaining to Ky why his son had made it into the local paper. And Ky _would_ find out—he had no doubt that Ky hadn't stopped his habit of checking the bounty records.

"Die, Gear!"

There was a loud crashing noise, and over the top of people's heads, Sol could see a giant parade fixture partially collapsing.

Aw hell.

Elbowing his way through the throng, Sol arrived at the scene of the commotion to find Sin happily bashing away at the papier-mâché skull of a dog-headed creature, its fiercely glaring eyeballs now dislodged to the point of going cross-eyed. Well, at least he hadn't used—

"Ride the lightning!"

—magic yet.

Hell.

Although a far cry from its namesake, the spell jolted through the length of the dragon, leading its hindquarters to collapse, as well. Sol thought he could hear some weak moans from its drooping paper folds. Shit, was that one of those things that actually came with people inside?

"Oi, brat!"

Sin whipped around, his eyes shining with excitement. "Pa! I found a Gear!"

This was punctuated by a sound thwack on the "Gear's" head. Were people staring? They probably were, but Sol had other problems right now.

"That's not a Gear."

"...It's... not?"

"No, it's not." Sol threw back the flap to reveal a half-conscious guy, every hair on his body standing on end, who started screeching when he caught sight of Sin.

"But it was attacking that girl!" Sin pointed to a petite brunette in a parade costume, who was staring at them, wide-eyed.

"Um."

Damn Ky and his stupid ideas of imparting chivalry to his son.

The crowd was partially moving back to the scene of the crime, curious to see what was going on.

The guy was still screeching. People were still staring. Sol could practically see the headlines being typed right in his mind's eye.

"Um," said the girl again. "Perhaps we should get out of here?"

* * *

Under the girl's direction, they sought cover in an empty Chinese restaurant, where she promptly disappeared. The commotion outside was still ongoing, though, so Sol decided to take advantage of the lack of witnesses and subjected Sin to a prolonged form of the "knuckle-to-the-head" method. Damn if this wouldn't be all over the papers tomorrow.

"Aw, don't hurt him."

Sol looked up from grinding his fist against Sin's thick skull. The girl had changed out of the costume and wiped off the war paint, altering her appearance drastically. Sol thought she seemed familiar somehow, but couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"She's pretty!" Sin said, clearly under the impression that he was stage whispering, and the girl gave a high-pitched giggle.

Oh. Oh, hell.

"What a cute little charmer," Jam Kuradoberi squealed, clapping her hands together.

Just their luck, running into _that woman_, of all people. He had never met her in person, but the fairly unsubtle letters she had written to Ky when he had still been with the police force, complete with photographs attached, kind of stood out in his memory. Maybe it was the smell. Really, who sent perfumed letters these days?

It had been fun to watch Ky twitch whenever he received a new one, too polite not to answer them. Apparently, she'd gotten a hold of his office number at some point and called a few times, and Sol had been present once or twice to see Ky hastily yanking the receiver away from his ear.

Sin wriggled in his hold, and Sol didn't even need to look to know that the brat was grinning like a loon.

"Don't be so harsh with him," Jam was saying. "He was only trying to protect a lady! That's rare, these days."

Sol barely held back a snort, but by then, his grip had gotten lax enough that Sin managed to slip free.

"You're not hurt, are you, Miss?"

Funny, how the same line could sound so very different when spoken by two different people. It was like having a little version of Ky around, with all of the shiny and none of the restraint or shame. He really ought to have a talk with Ky about this. The brat was still grinning.

"Awww, so cute!" Jam giggled, tousling his hair. "You know... you kind of remind me of somebody. He was cute, too. What's your name?"

"Sin K—"

Sol gave the brat a not-so-subtle whack in the back of his kneecaps, and Sin trailed off into a cough.

"Who'd name such a sweet little boy 'Sin'?"

"Well, he is original," Sol muttered. Was the grin splitting the brat's face yet?

Jam blinked at him, nonplussed.

"It's a codename!" Sin said proudly, which prompted another bout of giggles.

"Tell you what, Sin, I'll fix you something because you rescued me from that evil dragon," she said.

Oh. Oh, wonderful. Way to go and ruin what he had just spent ten minutes imparting to the brat.

"Well, that's nice, but we were _leaving_," Sol said, giving the brat's suspenders a surreptitious yank. Sin deflated visibly.

"Oh, but where would you go?" Jam asked, putting a finger to her chin. "They're still looking for those who caused the commotion. It's safer if you stay here a while, unless you don't mind paying for all that property damage."

Was it just him, or were her eyes gleaming? Damn the invisible rays of shiny and their heritability. Perhaps he should start teaching the brat about cougars...

"I'm sure my little savior would like some hotpot, wouldn't he?"

Sin was nodding wildly, and Sol would have loved to blame this on the castle maids and their endless cooing over the "little master", but he had been the one to introduce the rule of thumb, "Never pass up a meal. Especially if it's free."

"Alright, then it's settled! Just sit down wherever, and I'll fix up something. Be back in a jiffy!" A wink, and she had disappeared behind the fluttering _noren_ that concealed the entrance to the kitchen.

Sol took the opportunity for another round of knuckle-to-the-head.

"Next time, you listen to me, brat, or I'm gonna roast you. You're still in for an ass-kicking once we get out of here."

When he let go, Sin escaped to the other side of the room, slipping into a chair.

"She said I was cute!" he said, smoothing out his hair and looking thoroughly unrepentant.

"It's a different word for saying you're a precocious moppet," Sol growled, "You're not supposed to be hitting puberty yet."

"You're jealous," Sin said, still grinning.

"Feh," Sol huffed. "Enjoy your insolence while you still can, brat. As soon as we're out of here, I'm buying that leash."

* * *

There was something distinctly strange about working without interruptions, without a childish weight attempting to swing from his arm in mid-sentence, or having his foot used as leverage for conquering his lap.

It was also strange not to be required to change his clothes at least twice a day because Sin had managed to get paint or marmalade or mud on his hands and thrown his arms around him in a tackle-hug, or not to have a tiny weight jostling him out of his sleep in the middle of the night—it was kind of sad that Sin would be long past that age when they would next see each other.

The silence seemed almost louder than the near-constant noise that had once filled his office, as Sin had grown from running smack-dab into chairs and file cabinets to taking apart office equipment to toppling the heavy bookcase with the almanacs (he had been forbidden from touching the glass cupboard housing the tea cup collection on pain of severe penalties). Privately, Ky had to admit that he sometimes found himself listening for crashes and explosions out of sheer habit, and feeling disappointed when, of course, nothing was forthcoming.

Sin seemed to be having fun, at least, if the enthusiasm ringing from his infrequent but lengthy letters was any indication. Sol had taught him one of the old code systems they had used during the war... as well as convinced him to adopt his almost illegible scrawl. Really, one of the few ways to tell them apart were the constant doodles added in the margins—they even seemed to have developed the inexplicable talent for producing nearly identical stains.

Sometimes, it made him wonder if Sin would even feel comfortable here anymore, when the time came that it was safe for him to visit the castle again.

_Visit..._

It had a strange ring to it, to think of it as "visiting" instead of "coming home", but Ky had gone over the options long ago and decided that this would be no life for Sin. The thought of his son trapped between the spider webs of intrigue and the stiff formalities of nobility didn't sit well with him. Sin was not the kind of person who would feel comfortable in any such environment once he lacked a child's obliviousness—Ky himself could hardly feel at ease, couldn't quite comprehend how anyone could.

But he had a duty to fulfill, and that was enough. It had to be.

"—Majesty? Your Majesty?"

An aide had cracked open the door, too polite to step inside.

"Ah, my apologies. What is it?"

"The horses are ready, Your Majesty, if you wish..."

Ah, of course. Time to jump in the shark pond, as Sol liked to call it.

Locking the letter in his desk drawer, Ky gathered his papers and headed for the door.

* * *

Sol couldn't remember the last time he had been to the movies. It had to have been during his early teenage years, before he'd had his all work and no play phase, and after that... there hadn't exactly been time. He would never have agreed to it now, either, except the brat had hit him with the question when he'd still been mostly asleep, and had subjected him to the kicked-puppy face when he tried to pretend he'd forgotten, later. He made sure to grumble about it at length, just so the brat wouldn't start thinking he was _easy_.

He and Ky had agreed to limit Sin's exposure to anything that would give him very bad ideas, but Sol figured he'd have to start learning to distinguish between reality and fiction sooner or later. How bad could it be, anyway? Nothing a few kicks in the right places wouldn't solve.

The theater came pretty close to being one of those buildings that were technically a safety hazard but tearing them down would cost more than letting the structure collapse on its own. Most of them were like that—those that had survived, anyway—with money for reconstruction still flowing to other places.

The floor was sticky more often than not, the seats were threadbare and had clearly been built for somebody with half his bulk, but whatever. Sin had managed to inhale most of his popcorn by the time the previews rolled around, and Sol figured if he just slept through the stupid, nothing cataclysmic would happen. The brat had had it ground into his head that he was not to attack the screen under any circumstances, and that just about covered the rules for this kind of place. Stretching out as well as he could, Sol closed his eyes, slowly drifting off to the sounds of high-pitched cartoonish chattering and the subsequent over-dramatic opening credits.

And then...

"They made mom a girl," Sin said, consternated.

_Wait, what?_

Sol sat up straight, shaking the fuzziness from his brain, and blinked at what appeared to be a really nice pair of legs in a short, short skirt.

Sin was equally riveted, though for entirely different reasons. There were monsters on the screen, too, past the really nice pair of legs in the short, short skirt.

"What did you drag us into, brat?"

He hadn't really been listening when Sin had told the cashier what he wanted, which Sol had assumed would be whatever the equivalent of Bugs Bunny was these days, though come to think of it, the lady _had_ looked at them like she had wanted to say something...

"They made a movie about mom! I wanted to see that," Sin said. "But they made him a girl."

On the screen, the camera stopped showing off the really nice legs, panning up the skirt-clad booty, circling to the front to give an extensive view of a pair of boobs divided by a golden cross, and finally focusing on the girl's face.

She had the scowl down perfectly, right down to the way she was sticking out her bottom lip. Lip-gloss, of course, but then again, Sol had teased Ky mercilessly about his toiletry, as he had perhaps been the only person in the entire army to bother bringing a sewing kit and toothbrush along for forays into swamps and other nasty places. Part of the setting an example thing. Or something. The bow on the back of her head was a nice touch, too.

Things started going critical further down, and while the thought of Ky in that getup was pretty hot, no, the female members of the Order would have murdered anyone for suggesting that as the regular dress, and come on, the hooker boots were totally ridiculous. Points deducted for the way she was holding the rapier thing they'd stuck her with, too—anybody could've wrenched the weapon from her hand with a slight twist.

And—oh come on, nobody could be doing somersaults in those heels, and flipping and flopping all over the place like that was just plain stupid. From the looks of it, Sin was already well on his way to incorporating every hilariously over-the-top move into his baton-twirling routine, though, staring at the screen in rapture. Sol scowled, and made a mental note to do a lesson that covered decapitation due to pole-dancing.

The church bell-violin combo suddenly segued into some really bad brass theme, and... was that supposed to be _him_?

Sin was of the same mind, since he was glancing skeptically between Sol and the Neanderthal reject in the movie, and man, fighting half-naked really wasn't as fun as the films made it seem. Whoever had been in charge of the choreography had clearly used up most of his ideas for the Kylie. No matter what that sword looked like, it was _not_ bludgeon. Why hadn't they just given the guy a stone club?

Whoever had made this had some very screwed up notions about the war, too—that tentacle thing that had currently disarmed the Kylie and was holding her hostage... well, that slime was capable of dissolving you into nice, digestible goo. These things didn't care about molesting people, just about crushing their ribcage. Panty shot. Tentacles going for boobs. Girly screeching. Great. Was this turning into monster hentai?

"Why doesn't she just fry it?" Sin said, staring crossly at the writhing girl.

"Because the script says that he has to save her so they can— uh. So she can show how grateful she is."

"That isn't very nice." Sin was glaring at the guy, who had managed to free the girl and was holding her slung over his shoulder, panty-clad bottom to the camera, of course, and one meaty hand on said bottom.

Well, that was one thing he wouldn't have to be lecturing on, at least.

The movie got two more strikes. One for idiotic speeches, something Sol was sure he'd have to educate the brat on, since few things in the world gave you an opportunity to tell them how great you were and exactly how you were going to defeat them. And while Sin was technically able to survive a whack or two to the head, that would just count as poor performance. The second one was a case of the writers smoking something that was definitely not tobacco—the Kylie conveniently shorting out in the middle of a downpour so she could be rescued yet again.

"That's stupid!" Sin shouted, "Mom can—"

Dragging Sin back into his seat to the angry murmurings of other moviegoers, Sol brought his fist down on his head. "No mentioning who your mom is in public, kiddo."

"Oh. Yeah." Sin scratched his head sheepishly.

Sol wasn't sure how they made it through the rest of the movie. The decisive battle against the villain was a pretty nice lightshow, though whoever had designed the pseudo-Justice had watched one too many space operas, but otherwise, it was a collection of priceless hilarity interspersed with Kylie fanservice. Perhaps he should find a poster of that and send it to Ky, to enjoy the mental image of him blushing and fuming all over the place.

Somebody had thought it'd be more romantic to have Neanderthal-him stick around for victory-booty (and damn it, he should have, though the make-up sex hadn't been bad, either), which turned out to be an epic slobberfest.

Wow, Ky would skewer him if he slipped him the tongue like that. Though that just served to remind him that he hadn't had any opportunities to get skewered in quite some time.

"Ewww. Is he... trying to eat her?"

Oh damn. Brat watching. Sol reached to the left and covered Sin's eye with his hand.

"No word to mom about this, or he'll find ways to kill us both."

* * *

Most people would likely consider a dinner party a pleasant event.

Ky had always felt nervous and out of his depth whenever he had been forced to attend such gatherings for publicity and fund-raising purposes during the war, which had fortunately not been very often. The snobbish formality and insipid small talk had annoyed him, the way deals and alliances were forged over glasses of Chardonnay and tiny slices of toast topped with perfectly round piles of caviar, safely away from anything resembling reality, where people were dying and fleeing and starving.

It had been at times like these that he could understand Sol's anti-establishmentarianism, at least to a degree.

Little had changed from that time, except the fact that the war had ended. Those in power were still gambling with people's lives over fancy pastries, and as much as Ky would have preferred not to be a part of the entire miserable charade, he knew that he needed to attend in order to be able to make informed decisions.

He had found out early on that the small clusters of gossiping women yielded much more valuable information, the men too busy preening their feathers to reveal much of interest or use. Lady Chevenix-Gore in particular, an imposing woman with a penchant for gaudy jewelry and a brand of humor that could still make him blush brightly in embarrassment, was a veritable wellspring when it came to the comings and goings in high society, especially in high society's bedrooms.

It had mostly been her unsubtle hints about the Archduke's secret preference of the company of _goats_, of all things, that had finally led to the downfall of the hardliner faction. Without their most prominent spokesman, the rest seemed suddenly a lot less sure about their plans of pushing for a Gear hunting commission that would operate independently from the police force, with full access to any and all personal records.

Ky knew he would have to thank her, later. As for now, he was trying to get rid of the horribly sycophantic character of a certain Duke of Lorion, who clearly had his own agenda and was under the impression that his over-the-top flattery would lull Ky into a false sense of security.

"Most unfortunate, most unfortunate," the duke was saying, his eyes flashing sharply behind his expression of excessive sympathy. "Dear Alfred's presence will be sorely missed, I'm sure."

"Certainly," Ky agreed without missing a beat, pretending he could not see the man's piercing stare.

"After all, he has always had the interests of the populace in mind," the duke prompted, obviously hoping for Ky to disagree.

_Interests indeed. He had them so much in mind that he would have loved to know them right down to the tiniest detail_, the little voice that sounded suspiciously like Sol muttered in the back of his head.

"It must be very beneficial to Your Majesty, no, to be able to proceed without, ahem, hindrance? Though perhaps some will wonder why Your Highness does not agree that the people must be protected from this... menace?"

"There are many capable bounty hunters in this world, who are more than willing to deal with any threat that arises," Ky said smoothly. "I see no reason to spend tax money on a special unit with a dubious modus operandi when we have a functioning system. One does have to wonder how the surveillance of phone lines ties into identifying and neutralizing Gears—especially since I have never seen one capable of operating a home phone."

"Well, yes of course!" the duke agreed hastily. "I am sure this was all an honest mistake—"

Letting his eyes sweep across the ballroom, Ky tuned out the lengthy cover-up. A ways away, the Lady Chevenix-Gore looked up from her little coterie of eccentric friends and lifted her hand in a beckoning wave, the colorful jewels adorning each of her fingers flashing in the overhead lighting.

Unfortunately, the gesture was hardly discreet, and the duke was never too busy apologizing not to notice these things. "Oho," he chortled, "I see the lady has caught Your Majesty's eye? Well, well, different strokes for different folks, but if I may be frank, she is so very unsuited to Your Majesty's delicate sensibilities."

_What?_

"She may be a woman of, ahem, grandeur, but she is far from the, uh, freshest around, and if one listens to the right sources, she has some very questionable pastimes. It would be wise for Your Majesty to choose some other... company. In fact, Minister Barton and I have been, ahem, wondering if you would not be interested in getting to know little Rosalind."

_What?_

"She has been attending a renowned school in Switzerland and has just come back for the holidays. A sweet little thing with wonderful taste in art and music, a delight to listen to on the piano. Minister Barton has informed me that she would be absolutely _enchanted_ to make Your Majesty's acquai—"

Along the wall, several crystal sconces gave a soft popping noise and exploded into showers of sparks and splinters.

The duke goggled, taking a step back from the tapestry.

"Do excuse me," Ky said, his voice betraying nothing, "It seems Lady Chevenix-Gore has been trying to alert me to a problem with the electricity. I better investigate this at once before we meet with further... accidents."

* * *

"Mom!"

The last time he had been on the receiving end of a flying tackle-hug, the hugger in question had plowed straight into his legs. Now, the hugger plowed straight into his chest and knocked him flat on the floor, making him grateful for the thick carpeting.

"Hello, Sin," Ky said, smiling and reaching down to pat the tousled head.

Sin stopped attempting to burrow into his chest like a dog, looking up and grinning. "I'm back, mom!"

"I think he can see that, brat," came Sol's amused voice from the door, and there went any chance Ky might have had at retaining his dignity.

"It's good to have you back," he said, still smiling. "But I think I'd appreciate it more if I weren't lying on the floor."

"Oops!" Sin said, hardly apologetic, but agreed to let him get up on the grounds that there would be more hugs. Ky got to his feet, brushing off his robes and engaged in a slightly more proper version of a greeting.

"You've grown," he observed, chuckling when Sin pulled away, puffing out his chest and straightening.

"That's not your accomplishment, that's genetics," Sol said, and Sin turned around to stick his tongue out at him.

"Just you watch it, I'm gonna be taller than you one day, old man."

"'Old man'?" Ky asked, smirking. "I see you've been downgraded. Makes me feel better, seeing how you got him to internalize that infernal mode of address."

"He managed that all on his own. Though the movie where they gave you boobies didn't help."

"That. Thanks for reminding me, I was going to kill you for that."

"Ah, there's the warmfuzzies right there." Sol grinned. "I've been missing those death threats."

"Ew, sap!" Sin complained, making a face. "If you're gonna start like that, I'm going over there. Far, far _away_."

"Yeah, yeah, shut up and scat. Give me some alone time with your mo—ow."

Ky glared, lightning dancing between his fingertips in silent warning.

"Oh, gross. Parents flirting. I'm gonna be in my room if anyone needs me."

"Nobody needs—ow! You _really_ missed me, huh."

"I better not be hearing you all the way down the corridor!" Sin shouted, dashing out with his hands clapped over his ears in an overly dramatic fashion.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Sol took the time to give him a critical once-over. "You look like death warmed over."

"You're such a flatterer," Ky retorted. He knew there was no hiding it, though—things had been very busy lately. Most of the time, he didn't go to bed before the early hours of the morning, and more often than not, he would be up at the break of dawn, as well.

"No, seriously. How much sleep have you been getting? Saying 'I took a nap three days ago' doesn't count."

"I took a nap today after lunchtime, if you must know."

"On something constructed for napping, or did you just pass out on the desk?"

Ky shrugged. "I've been pulling 29 hour days before."

"Yeah, when none of us could afford to catch a wink of sleep, anyway," Sol said, rolling his eyes.

"Sometimes it's not so different from the war," Ky said ruefully. "Except back then, nobody was trying to marry me off."

Sol stared. "You're not serious."

"I wish I were kidding, actually. It was very embarrassing, especially on—"

"...That's it. I'm getting you out of here."

"I've already taken care of it," Ky said, lifting his hand in a pacifying gesture. The hardest part had been calming down the castle staff, who had seemed just about ready to fetch the pitchforks for causing His Majesty and His Majesty's poor sickly beloved such grief. "The young lady was as embarrassed as I about the whole thing, seeing as we are both rather... spoken for."

"And you think this will get them off your back?" Sol pointed out. "Do you seriously think you can keep saying no if they start lining up a whole harem?"

"That's disgusting. Like choosing an... an accessory."

"Welcome to the world of the aristocracy, where political deals come in the form of wedding rings. If they're really smart, they've already picked a mistress on the side for you, too. You _have_ been pretty boring on that front, so far."

"And here I was under the impression that they'd called me in to save Illyuria from a crisis," Ky sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Heh, I knew I should have bought one of those girly magazines where they devote fifteen-page high-resolution specials to your ass."

Ky stared at him. Half the problem with Sol was that one could never tell what was crazy talk, what he was making up just to be annoying, and what was actually true. "You're joking, right. Please tell me you're joking, why would they…? For that matter, why would _anyone_...?"

Sol shrugged. "It's a very nice ass. Why do you think I've been following you around so diligently? Better view, that's why."

"I should fry you for that, but I've got a headache."

Returning to his desk, Ky began tidying up the paperwork. The signed request forms went on one stack, the rejected ones wandered into the waist-high pile on the side, the confidential stuff was to be put into sealed envelopes and stored away in the safe, and he really wanted to ignore the flashing display on the answering machine that told him he had managed to accumulate about fifty messages since this morning...

The sudden jolt of pain as five fingers precisely found the worst knots on the back of his neck was almost a relief, momentarily overriding the pounding in his skull.

"How is it," Sol was murmuring close to his ear, "that that pile seems to be growing larger every time I stop by?"

"Perhaps because it is," he replied, trying not to lean into that welcome pressure.

"Funny, and here I thought you were well on your way to fixing this country."

"I am. There's just... so much more to do. I've got the Gear problem mostly under control, but then there is the school system, and agriculture needs financial aid, and first I'll need to push for that tax reform they're all resisting because it's not feeding their own pockets. And after that..."

"I could kill everyone," Sol suggested, fingers working across his shoulders.

"Ask me again when I can actually say no." His voice hitched on the last word, pleasure finally winning out over pain, Sol's chuckle a low reverberation against his temple. Was it just him, or was it getting warmer, a slow heat spreading from his back through his body, making it hard to concentrate.

"Evil."

"I prefer thinking of it as opportunistic," Sol said, thumb digging into the space below his left shoulder blade. "Seeing you squirm is just a nice fringe benefit."

"You suck at sucking up."

"I don't suck at other forms of sucking."

"Oh, that's horrible, really horrible. I should kill you for that."

"Wanna punish me here or in the bedroom?"

Ky shook his head. "Remind me again why I put up with you."

A leer. "Gladly."

.

.

.

-TBC-


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** Unlawful Appropriation  
**Fandom:** Guilty Gear Overture  
**Pairing/Characters:** Sol/Ky, Sin  
**Part:** 3/3  
**Rating:** PG-15  
**Warning:** AU, humor  
**Disclaimer:** If I owned Overture, the entire thing would've made a bit more sense. XD  
**Notes:** I am cheerfully ignoring anything in Overture that doesn't make sense for the purposes of this story. Yeah, that's a lot, I know. I've also not taken into account anything Ishiwatari might have come up with before his first cup of coffee to say in an interview. That rarely helps, anyway. XD I owe a lot to hours of fun conversation with **twigcollins**. And last but not least, credit for the original instigation of this particular AU goes to **rallamajoop**. I have tried to keep the similarities to a minimum, so please forgive me if something does show.

-

**Unlawful Appropriation**  
_**Part III**_

-

.

They never did manage to get much of anything done that night.

Ky was dead to the world almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, and Sol realized that he had forgotten Ky's ability to stretch the definition of things such as "food" and "rest" to their absolute limit. It was safe to assume that Ky's "nap" had lasted for about ten uneasy minutes, before he had jerked awake to continue slaving away at the goddamn desk. And if he was working all day, and still wasn't losing his edge, then that meant he had taken to skipping meals to fit in time for training.

Foolish boy, still driving himself so hard for nothing.

He barely even stirred when Sol removed his boots and the heavy ornaments, right along with the stupid princess tiara they had stuck him with. Would leave a permanent imprint on his forehead at this rate, the damn thing.

Ky curled into the warmth, an old reaction that he had never quite gotten rid of from the days when they had been freezing their asses off in the tents, and Sol had not been above taking advantage of it.

They awoke sometime closer to noon than morning, certainly nowhere near Ky's usual hour, and Sol only woke up because Ky did and tried to slip out of bed, undoubtedly to do more paperwork. Fortunately, Sol still had his specifically developed entrapment reflexes.

"Ngh," Ky said, clearly still half asleep if that was the only thing he could come up with. "Let go. I overslept."

"Mrr."

"Stop pretending you can't understand what I'm saying."

"I think," Sol said thickly, voice muffled by Ky's neck. "There's a name for what you have. It's called 'being a workaholic'."

A sigh, and Ky relaxed against him. "We missed breakfast, too."

Sol lifted his head to glare at him blearily. "You're the king. You can have breakfast whenever you want."

"…Oh. Right."

Sol groaned and buried his face in his neck again. "Only you'd forget that, Kiske. Only you."

"I didn't _forget_," Ky said, annoyance creeping into his tone. "I just don't want—"

"If you're going to say one word about causing trouble, I'm going to hit you. I bet there's about twenty people around right now who'd fall all over themselves with happiness if you asked them to bring you a turkey sandwich. For fuck's sake, the _brat_ is easier to teach than you."

Ky's lips twitched. "He's probably learned all kinds of horrible things by now."

"Heh, I'll have you know his core programming is still intact. Clean, eloquent, and polite to the ladies. Everything else… was fair game."

"I distinctly remember teaching him to be polite to people in general."

"Don't look at me. He has amazingly selective hearing."

"Great."

"And while we're at it, I also take no responsibility for his fashion sense. He's committing those outfits all on his own."

"Of course," Ky nodded. "I bet it has nothing to do with the fact that you just gave him the money and sent him into a store. Where he got pounced on by a hyperactive teenage girl with a questionable sense of taste."

"According to him, several. And from their perspective, it's not so questionable," Sol said. He gave Ky a moment to mourn his son's lost innocence, before adding, "He's not turning out so bad, you know."

"Yeah. I'll have to apologize to him later. I didn't mean to cut things short yesterday."

Rolling over on his side, Sol waved his hand dismissively. "You were dead on your feet, and don't you think the brat didn't notice that, too. Why do you think he backed off like that?"

"I thought that was because we were, what was it? Oh yeah, 'being gross'."

"That, too."

"And here we didn't even get to be really gross."

"I'm sure that bit yesterday was already well within that realm," Sol said.

"Speaking of which, that was awfully gallant of you, letting me sleep last night," Ky teased, shifting closer. "I should reward you for that, shouldn't I."

"What, you're gonna be rewarding me with something I should've been getting _anyway_?" Sol asked, trying to suppress the pleasant shiver as Ky reached out to scratch the back of his head. It had been entirely too long.

"Hmm, keep complaining and I might decide to kick you out. And then you'd be missing out on all the gross things."

"That'd be a real shame," Sol murmured, and leaned in.

The sharp knock caused them to break apart mere minutes later, an aide's muffled voice sounding through the closed door, "Your Majesty? I am deeply sorry to trouble you, but it is an emergency..."

"No," Sol said decisively, and Ky kneed him in the stomach.

"Be quiet."

"Stop—"

"Shut up."

"You can't—"

"Pardon, Your Highness?"

"I'll be there in a minute," Ky called, attempting to smother Sol with a pillow. When the aide's footsteps faded away, Sol shoved away the pillow, glaring at him balefully.

"Do you know how many cockblocks this makes?"

"Entirely too many, I'm sure," Ky replied, disentangling himself from his hold and the bedspread alike, and Sol was almost sure he could hear a hint of regret underneath the reproachful tone.

"You're bad for your own health. Not to mention my sanity."

"I'm sure whatever you are, it isn't and has never been 'sane'," Ky's voice rose from the depths of the walk-in closet as he rummaged around, changing out of his wrinkled clothes.

"I'll start a war. I'll go start a war and destroy the universe and it will be all your fault _because I did not get any_."

"Now that's just silly." Ky reappeared, running a comb through his hair in short, quick strokes. He looked around, before spotting the circlet carelessly hanging off the edge of the dresser. Sighing, he strode over, and when he pushed it into place, it suddenly seemed like a permanent fixture. Sol glared harder.

Stopping at the door, Ky turned back around. "For what it's worth... I'm really sorry."

The door opened and closed, leaving Sol to direct his curses into the pillow.

——

"You're grumpy," Sin observed, shifting the flagpole on his shoulder as they walked.

"Whatever gave you that idea," Sol growled, but truth be told, not getting laid (again) was actually one of his minor problems.

That visit had only made crystal clear what he had been suspecting for a long time—Ky wasn't taking care of himself, not sleeping properly, jumping up during breakfast (to which he had arrived late thanks to that 'emergency') to answer urgent calls and give instructions for something or other, all things that, in Sol's opinion, could have waited until he had at least gotten a cup of tea and one of the stupid French rolls.

It had only served to drive home the fact that Ky had once again been pushed into a mold he was expected to fill, and was working himself into the ground trying, and attempting to be absolutely perfect on top of that. And nobody saw it, nobody wanted to see it, or maybe they were just too damn respectful or too damn comfortable to speak up, and everyone just kept piling things on top of him until…

Until.

"Mom wasn't doing so well, huh," Sin prompted, apparently thinking along the same lines.

"You saw him. You saw his desk."

Sin's brow furrowed. "Why is he doing it if he doesn't like it?"

"It's complicated," Sol said. "Short version is that he's crazy."

"And the long version?"

Sol huffed. "I told you about that. About the war and how they called him a savior."

Sin nodded.

"He likes helping people. He likes it when everybody's happy. And if he has to do a metric shit-ton of stuff he doesn't like to get there, then that's what he's gonna do, because that's the way he is. And other people like taking advantage of that."

"I'd get mad," Sin said, chewing on his bottom lip thoughtfully.

"Oh, he does get mad—he'll just never show you until you prod him long enough."

"That's…"

"Kinda stupid? Yeah."

They walked in silence for a while.

"So," Sin finally said. "What's the plan?"

"So glad you asked."

——-

The biggest challenge of the entire operation was finding a car, and then—since most cars were primitive relics that did not accommodate a driver's artistic passions—finding an old stereo system. Sol refused to do without one, though, because making history without a proper soundtrack was simply out of the question.

He was also the one who thought the car should be painted to resemble a flaming El Camino.

Sin had no idea what an El Camino was, but found spray-painting flame tongues along its sides to be ridiculously fun. Of course, he managed to get it all over himself, too, and then Sol, which might or might not have been an accident, but warranted a good ass-kicking, regardless, followed by a bath in which Sol lovingly attempted to drown him, and then they were set to go.

"Is this safe?" Sin asked, looking the car up and down.

"What do you take me for," Sol said. "Of course it isn't."

Sin grinned. "Awesome."

——

"Bored."

Silence.

"Bored."

Silence.

"Super-bored."

Sol took another drag on his cigarette and glanced over at Sin, who was standing on his head, doing push-ups and kicking a stone from foot to foot.

"...I'm still bored," Sin informed him.

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly thrilled, either," Sol growled.

They were hiding in the bushes surrounding the parliamentary building, an ancient structure that looked and smelled like it had been built forever ago, with menacing gargoyles perching on its ledges and outcroppings, and Sol found its entire appearance oddly suited to its uses. The plan had been to wait until the current parliamentary session was over, grab Ky at the exit, and whisk him away into the night. Or something equally poetic.

The only setback to this plan was that the session was taking forever, and the night was now less of a poetic concept and more of an imminent reality.

"It's gonna be dark soon. How much longer is this gonna take?"

"Don't ask me."

"Why are we waiting out here, anyway?"

"Because it's the least likely method to cause problems, and—"

Sin flopped back onto his feet and gave him a weird look. "Since _when_ have we ever cared about _that_."

Sol blinked, and extinguished his cigarette. "You know what? Screw this."

"Sweet. I call dibs on the guards!"

——

"All those in favor of the motion, rise."

The great room filled with the sounds of rustling robes and shuffling feet as the members rose from their bench seats, and Ky did not even need to wait for the head-count to know that the motion to grant further tax cuts to the elite had just been approved.

"...321, 322, 323. We have a majority, Your Highness."

It was on days like these that he earnestly wished to call down a bolt of divine lightning on the entire assembly of self-serving bastards.

"If there are no further concerns—"

The great oak doors on the far side of the hall burst open. To be more correct, they were wrenched from their hinges by a ball of fire and came hurtling towards the speaker's podium, the speaker throwing himself out of the way in a stunning display of presence of mind.

_Oh, no. No._

"I have a concern," Sol Badguy proclaimed, holding the squirming announcer by the scruff of his neck. "You've been hogging my bed-mate. I'd like him back."

Stunned silence met his declaration, the nobles too shocked at the explosive entrance to do anything but gawk.

"Sol," Ky said very slowly. "What the _hell_ are you doing here."

Sol dropped the announcer flat on his ass, who edged crablike away from the insane man with the flaming sword. "I just told you. I'm here to rescue you from yourself."

Sporadic murmurs were beginning to rise from the seats, some people shaking off their shock and looking back and forth between the madman and their king, who seemed to know this rude entrant.

"Lover?"

"Did he say...?"

"Are they—?"

"Really?"

Ky grit his teeth, rising from his seat. "I have no idea _what_ hit you on the head this morning, but I suggest you get the hell out of here before I beat your imbecilic ass out the door."

"Whoo, one point for me."

"What."

"One point for me. I made you swear. Another ten and I win a night with handcuffs."

The Furaiken activated with a sharp crackle, Ky stepping down from his elevated seat. "Alright, that's it. I hope you enjoyed your time on this Earth, because I will _end_ you."

"Oh, great. I've been getting way too little in the way of action." Sol raised his sword.

"Help! Guards!" the shrill voice of a noblewoman arose from the back rows, and Ky wanted to smack his forehead. The last thing he needed was a couple of well-meaning guardsmen interfering in this disaster. He was trying for damage control, here.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm afraid security is down for the moment. If you just stay in your seat, we'll have this sorted out in no time."

Ky stared.

Sin lifted his hand and wriggled his fingers in greeting, the flag slung lackadaisically over his shoulder. "Hi, mom."

"What are you doing here?" Sol said. "I thought you called dibs on the guards."

"They were all lame. Just keeled over. And you were taking too long."

"Your mom's being unreasonable. We were just going to talk about it like civilized adults."

"Awesome. Can I—"

A ball of lightning hit him square in the chest, slamming him back against the wall.

"Siacre Isabel Nicetius. You are in so much trouble."

Sin peeled himself off the wall, leaving a sizable indentation, and shook off the dust. "Great! Come with us so you can punish me."

"Are you both _insane_?!" Ky shouted, at the end of his patience. He was going to murder Sol for dragging Sin into this.

They looked at each other. "Uh," Sin shrugged. "I guess that was a rhetorical question."

Ky leapt. He knew there was only a hell's chance of moving this out of the grand hall and somewhere where there were no innocent bystanders, but he had to put a stop to them before Sol came up with the crazy idea of actually taking hostages. As it was, Sol seemed to have no interest in anything besides a fight, and he wasn't pulling his punches—Fuenken clashing against Furaiken as if it were eight years ago and a thousand miles away.

"So nice to see you haven't lost your edge," Sol purred, grinning like a fiend. "I was afraid it might get boring."

"_Fumier_!"

"Mm, that's hot. I missed that, too."

A blast of fire forced Ky to dance out of range, the magic hitting the podium, long vacated by the frightened speaker, flaming fragments and splinters of wood raining down on their screaming audience. Sol followed after him with barely any delay, but was forced back by the array of lightning bolts sent to meet him. At the same time, Ky caught the blur of movement on the edge of his vision, a roundhouse kick sending Sin careening into the foremost bench.

More shrieking as the people scrambled out of the way, and Ky barely had time to spare either them or Sin any concern—damn those parental instincts—because Sol was closing in on him again.

"Ride the lightning!"

Ky managed to dodge the spell, mainly thanks to Sin's inadvertent advance warning—it seemed he still hadn't grown out of yelling out his moves, and he'd have to kill Sol again for not drilling it out of him properly. A kick caught him in the stomach, and he stumbled backwards, calling forth a wall of electricity to block the follow-up.

"Ow!" Sol complained, undoubtedly just for the sake of complaining, but Ky had no chance to right himself, a sound whack catching him in the back of the head.

"Sorry, mom!" Sin called, not even the least bit sorry, and Ky whirled, suppressing the rising nausea, a hit with the flat of the blade tearing the flag from Sin's grasp, and followed up by kicking his feet out from underneath him. The turnaround took too long, though—Sol simply diving under the edge of the Furaiken and sweeping Ky off the ground in a spectacular tackle.

The Furaiken went pinwheeling across the room, skewering a bust of Pallas Athena like an antique hors-d'œuvre.

"Wow," Sin said, struggling to his feet and grinning like a maniac despite his already fading black eye. "That was fun."

"Yeah," Sol agreed, slinging Ky over his shoulder as if he didn't weigh anything at all, walking over to pull the Furaiken from its target and toss it to Sin. "Now let's blow this joint."

By the time they reached the outside, the world's frantic spinning had slowed down significantly, and Ky considered his inability to focus properly not enough of a hindrance not to let Sol know exactly how he felt about being carried like a victory trophy.

Kick.

"I hate you."

A punch on the back.

"Let me go."

Knee to the stomach.

"Put me down this instant."

A jolt, cut short by a wave of nausea, and he was forced to clap a hand in front of his mouth and swallow the bile.

"Easy there," Sol murmured, thoroughly unperturbed, shifting him off his shoulder and right into his arms. "Brat probably gave you a concussion."

He was still grinning, though, thoroughly enjoying the entire farce, and Ky took the opportunity to try and knock his teeth in. Sol didn't even dodge, and that kind of benevolence just made Ky angrier.

"I hate you."

"Heh."

"Hey guys, stop sapping around for a second and get a move on!" Sin called from up ahead, standing next to... was that a _car_?

"We're getting company!"

As if on cue, the sounds of galloping horses cut through the evening air, and all Ky could do was hope that they wouldn't try to rescue him—it would only end in broken bones.

Sol loaded him in the backseat like a damn invalid and climbed in after him, undoubtedly to make sure he wouldn't try to make a scene. As if he was in any condition right now. The door closed, and Ky experienced a moment of confusion. Something was wrong, but he couldn't say...

"Wait, who's driving the car?"

"Uh."

"This is your captain speaking. Please fasten your seatbelts, relax, and refrain from being gross in the backseat."

"I'm not letting a two-year-old drive!" Ky exclaimed, struggling to sit up despite his dizziness.

"Kinda late for that now," Sol said, and the car gave an experimental lurch.

"Does he even know _how_?"

"Eh, he's a quick study."

"We're doomed. We're so doomed."

"Now you're just being dramatic."

"I reserve the right to be dramatic when my two year old son is—ack!"

The car lurched again, knocking Ky back into Sol's lap, who seemed to think this was all highly amusing.

"Okay, I've got it figured out now! We're good to go!" Sin announced, just as the sound of hooves came to a stop, the knights probably confused at the sight of the battered El Camino.

Ky groaned. "Then for god's sake, go, and please don't hit the horses."

"Sure thing," Sin said. "Oh wait."

"What _now_," Sol growled.

"You fail," Ky murmured. "You both fail so hard at this it's not even funny."

"We forgot the best part!" Sin said, and hit the stereo button.

Then, he spun the wheel, floored the accelerator, and the car shot past the terrified horses and their riders to the smell of melting rubber and "Don't Stop Me Now" blasting from the speakers.

——

"How's the head?"

They had been forced to stop at a rundown motel, the car having run out of fuel half a mile from civilization—though said civilization amounted to a one-horse 120 people town just beyond the Illyurian border. Ah well, at least they had managed to cross the border at all. They'd have to move again in the morning, in case the Illyurians pulled their act together long enough to send out a unit or two in pursuit, but Sol suspected that the entire parliament, and possibly the palace, were in an uproar by now, everyone running around like headless chickens. Would teach them all to cling to someone shiny's coattails.

Ky was reclining on the bed, a wet cloth pressed to the back of his head to soothe the bump that had formed.

"It hates you. And I hate you, too."

"Hm, so you keep saying."

"I keep saying it because it's true. I swear if I weren't seeing two of you at the moment, I'd castrate you."

"That bad, huh," Sol murmured, the mattress dipping as he sat down to take a close look at the injury.

"You can stop sucking up, I'm not going to be disfigured," Ky hissed, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Oh, come on," Sol said. "If you'd just come with us, this could've all been avoided. Though I'd have missed out on a good fight."

"It was unfair. Two against one."

"Well, we were trying to keep the collateral damage down."

"I'm amazed that there's room for consideration in your head, between the Gear cells and your idiocy." Ky leaned back, closing his eyes. "I can't even begin to imagine what must be going on right now. I'm not even sure I want to."

Sol shrugged. "Then don't. Ow."

Ky drew back his fist, trying his best to glare despite his vision still swimming in and out of focus. "I just. I can't believe this. _Why_. Why did you do this. Why do you always have to explode everything and offend everybody and god, they must be worried _sick_ about me."

"They're worried sick about losing their shiny."

"That's ugly, that's just ugly. There are people back at the palace to whom I owe a _lot_. Without them—"

"I'd say they owe you just as much," Sol pointed out. "So you're even. And as for the 'why', well. You can't tell me you would've been ready to talk about this reasonably over tea. And you can't tell me you would've gotten out of there, you'd have just kept working your ass off in a job you hate, with people you hate—"

"I didn't hate my job."

"Were you happy?"

"What?"

"Were you happy," Sol repeated, reaching out to pluck the wet cloth from Ky's fingers to continue bathing the bump. At least it wasn't bleeding. "Look me in the eye—well, okay, try to find my face and tell me you were happy filling out forms and answering requests for tax cuts on some rich slob's kid's pony farm, and arguing with morons and sinking into bed at three in the morning, lather, rinse, repeat, ad infinitum."

"I was doing other things, too. Good things."

"Sure you were," Sol admitted. "You got that country right out of a crisis—"

"And you kicked it right into the middle of a new one. Thank you."

"Really now," Sol said. "If they're that weak and complacent, then it's their own fault. If they've come to rely on you so much that they can't run the goddamn country without turning towards you, then that can only do them good. I think there was a famous Chinese guy who said, 'Give a starving man a fish, and he'll survive for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he'll survive for the rest of his life. And if he refuses to learn it, kick him in the fucking ocean'."

Ky pressed his knuckles against his forehead and sighed. Silence descended between them, and Sol could practically hear his mind working, mulling over all that had been said. Ky wasn't stupid, once he stopped being mad and started examining things logically. After a while, a deep sigh marked Ky's conceding defeat.

"Alright, fine," he mumbled. "Though that still leaves one thing open: What am I supposed to do now? I obviously can't go back, I can't return to my former job, in fact, I'll be lucky if I can even return to my former _apartment_, because in the matter of a few days, I'll be on the most wanted list when they start getting over their shock and start paying attention to your... your _allegations_—stop grinning—and that puts me in league with a wanted criminal turned terrorist—stop grinning, goddamnit. That's not an accomplishment!"

"You could always come along with us," Sol suggested, amused at the entire tirade.

Ky gave him a look. "And do what. Help you set things on fire?"

"Nah, you're too righteous for that. You do your savior thing, and you can spank us when we're bad."

"You know, if _I_ can tell your flirting is horrible... then it's really, really horrible."

"I have to tune down my awesome so you get it."

"Brain-damaged, that's what you are."

"Hmm, probably," Sol murmured, leaning closer. The other side of himself was still all hyped up from the fight, and he thought he had really earned a reward this time. He had been very patient, after all.

"Oh for holy's sake, I've got a concussion, you _animal_," Ky said, swatting at him.

"Hm."

"And I'm still mad at you."

"Hmmm."

"You could at least pretend to listen, you know."

"Mrr," Sol said, nuzzling his temple.

The moment was effectively ruined when the door opened, Sin sticking his head in. "Hey mom, are you—Ack! Can't unsee!"

The door slammed shut again, leaving an embarrassed silence.

"…For someone so smart, he's an idiot," Sol said eventually.

"I'd say he takes after you, there."

"Probably."

"You're awfully docile about this," Ky observed.

"I'm sucking up, can't you tell?"

"Oh. Well, then. Keep going."

——-

Summer in Tuscany meant thirty-three degrees of heat and unrelenting sun, inviting lethargy and midday naps—at least according to Sol, who had stretched out shamelessly across his lap and was pursuing aforementioned activities. Or non-activities, as it were.

Ky himself would have much preferred to be up and doing things, such as helping to rebuild the parts of the village that had fallen victim to a fire a mere day ago. It was just difficult to sit still when—

"Stop it," Sol muttered, eyes still closed and seemingly asleep. "Your thinking hurts my brain."

"You can't read my mind."

"Sure I can. 'Am I doing enough'. 'Shouldn't I go save that kitten from that tree'."

Ky sat up. "Which kitten?"

"Oh for fu—fudge," Sol said. "There is no kitten. I was using it as an example. Quite successfully, too. Seriously. You just saved that village from bandits. Give it a rest." He shifted a little. "If you're going to be self-sacrificing, you can always give me a massage or something."

"Or I could kick you off and you could get a crick in the neck from sleeping on the ground."

They stayed silent for a while, listening to the crickets chirping, before Ky picked up the conversation once more. "Where did Sin go, anyway?"

"Eh, who cares. Some ways over there." Sol waved his arm in the general direction of the plaza. "Just look for a twittering flock."

"Not again."

"He _is_ going through puberty right now," Sol pointed out. "It's only natural. It's just weird to you because you skipped yours."

"I'm not worried about that. He knows how to behave himself."

"He's surprisingly chivalrous in that," Sol agreed. "When he's so utterly shameless in everything else."

"I can't imagine where he gets it from. I should probably go and put a stop to it. He's going to eat them out of house and home at this rate."

"Now you're exaggerating. Just look at them. They're all happy. The girls get something to coo and pet and giggle over. He gets attention and cherry pie. It's all good."

"...Well. He doesn't seem to be growing into an evil apocalyptic menace so far." Ky thought for a moment. "A menace, yes. Evil and apocalyptic, no."

"Yeah. Didn't do so bad there."

Ky nodded, gaze drifting towards the village fountain, where he could indeed make out a group of five or six girls, and a tousled blond head in the center. He shook his head, smiling to himself.

"You know," Sol said, lifting himself up on his elbows. "Your timing blows."

"Huh?"

"This is the part where you're supposed to agree and kiss me."

"Oh. I guess I can do that," Ky said, and bridged the gap to Sol's surprised face.

.

.

.

----

-FIN-

**A/N:** Thank you all so much for sticking with me to the end. I had a lot of fun writing this story, so I hope it was the same for you reading it. C&C is, of course, most welcome. Now, on superfluous authorial blabbing:

1) I hope the fight scene didn't suck too badly. These things always look cool in my head, but I'm never sure when I translate them onto paper. XD;  
2) Ky's calling Sol the equivalent of a bastard. XD Try looking up the literal translation.  
3) El Caminos are cars that have a very distinctive body and long hood. Often, they are convertibles, too. You can see them a lot in old movies (1960s/1970s, especially), and often, they get spray-painted to look cooler. XD  
4) "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. It's an awesome song. 'nough said.  
5) Having Ky work himself into the ground for the rest of his life is just about the saddest and most unfair thing ever, imo. At least with the police, he wasn't dying of boredom. And heaven knows Sol missed getting abused. XD  
6)  
**Sin:** This is the life.  
**Ky:** I don't see how being stuck with you two is an improvement. *cough*Even though I do.*cough*  
**Sol:** I got... booty?


End file.
